


Shackled Wrists

by Sychronergy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Demon Deals, Demons, Historical Fantasy, M/M, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-09-28 04:15:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10071086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sychronergy/pseuds/Sychronergy
Summary: On the cusp of a war between humans and demons, a disgraced demon warrior is cheated and enslaved by a human prince who owes him a soul.





	1. Prologue

_"Steel and magic frolicked in fields of entrails as the heads of our children tumbled down mountains of flesh…"_

The storyteller, a dainty woman dressed in a cherry-red gown that dropped open to show the sides of her breasts, step onto a makeshift stage in the middle of the tavern. Heads turned as her mannish voice continued, "For decades, our liege sent out our beloved sons and daughters to battle the demons. This slaughter ended when The Edicts of Zephyr dictated peace between the two species."

"While the Immortal Prophet lives and for a quarter of a century after..." The bard narrated how the human country Tyné flourished in the peace; technology and magic research ascended new heights while merchants shared their wealth in happiness. When the story turned to how the Ramses, a demon warrior hailed as "The Spirit of the Sun", slew the immortal prophet twenty three years ago, some of the audience slammed down their goblets and others cheered for another chance to conquer Myksos.

Ramses tossed two coppers next to a plate of untouched honey-cakes and the coins bounced on scratched wooden surface. The stiff, restrictive nature of Tyné's fashion scratched his neck with every movement and the tighter areas of his jacket felt like ropes, but the design hid his scars. The tavern keeper, a man with a swaying belly walked over and snatched the coppers up, saying, "Is there anything else I can get for you?"

As the baritone described how the Curse of Zephyr burned Ramse's body from inside out, flayed every inch of his skin and rotted all his organs - all before claiming Ramses' life, Ramses replied, "No."

While rising, Ramses heard a man behind him say "Keep the change", with an atypical accent on the first word. The speaker, a middle-aged man who combed his fair hair forward to hide a large bald spot, brushed past Ramses with a young boy in tow. After stepping aside to let the duo pass, Ramses turned toward the door. Ramse's plans for the rest of the night were succinct: collect a soul and continue to search for The Tell-Tale Glass.

Outside the tavern, a group of children chorused a rhyme thanking the Tyné prince, Prince Cyrillus, for his assistance after a recent drought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to K.R. Morrighan for beta-reading!


	2. Chapter 1

A bird squawked in the distance.

Cold pebbles and rough gravel grated the side of Ramses' face. His entire body was a pulsing mass of stinging prickles and sluggish circulation. He distantly sensed three presences in his vicinity, but his magic felt like lead in his veins and the numbness was incessant. His jaw felt ossified, as if his teeth had been melded together and his lips sewn shut with iron threads.

Somewhere to his right, he heard the clink of a chain and a high-pitched, nervous voice said, "Exactly twenty links?"

"His Highness-"  _His Highness?_  "-appreciates precision," said the same voice that earlier told the tavern keeper to " _Keep the change_.”Staunch cuffs around his wrists and ankles, connected to chains forged from steel and magic, bound his hands behind his back.

The chains tightened and the second voice said, "There. He's fully restrained now."

"What's this?" said the first voice. That was when Ramses found the strength to pry his eyelids apart. The nervous voice belonged a chubby boy around sixteen, with a baby face and ruddy cheeks. He was reaching for a crocodile fang pendant around Ramses' neck, but Ramses glared and he quickly stepped back, shoving his hands into the pockets of a guard's livery. "He's a fine specimen. Scary eyes."

The other man, who Ramses confirmed to be the fair-haired man from the tavern had a golden griffin emblem pinned to his cloak and didn't look as enthused. Ramses wanted to bare his teeth at the humans, but his jaw was physically immobilized. Faint suspicion clouded the balding man's eye as he assessed the chains' strength. "I've never seen His Highness tempted by a demon before. Not once in twenty years."

_His Highness?_

"Twenty years? Have you ever seen His Highness' face?" The chubby boy blushed as soon as he spoke. The look on the older guard's face was one of patient amusement, but the boy hastened to explain, "It's the first thing you hear at the barracks. The Cursed Prince is the most beautiful man in the four kingdoms."

"Listening to the gossips of idle minds will dull your own," said the boy in the corner, the mage who’d been at the tavern with the balding blond. As more awareness trickled back, Ramses observed that he was held in a large, windowless and crypt-like cell lit by several magic torches. The mage stepped out the shadows and nodded at the fair-haired guard. "Hello, Desmond."

"Master Lyron," said Desmond. Ramses noticed that Desmond's hand twitched toward his sword, a infinitesimal reaction that no human eye could've caught. Desmond quenched the instincts with the quickness of an experienced veteran and asked diplomatically, "Why are you here?"

The spell that pinned Ramses' body to the ground began to recede, but the spell that kept his mouth sealed didn't. His unresponsive magic felt unnatural and disturbing. Ramses wriggled his toes and fingers, then lifted his head from the ground. Lyron's long, serious face came into clear view when he crouched in front of Ramses and peered at his face.

Desmond said, "His Highness said he's a danger."

"I'm here to ensure he's not," said Lyron. Airily, Lyron added, "His Highness' orders."

Ramses ignored all the humans in favor of welcoming sensation back to his body. Most prominently, Ramses felt physical hunger pangs clench his stomach. Though demons did not require physical sustenance as frequently as humans did, Ramses wished he had eaten those burnt honey-cakes while he was at the tavern. Ramses felt something feather over his body as Lyron cast a spell and the hieroglyphs enclosing his body strengthened in response.

"His Highness collared an Original," said Lyron, with some degree of surprise. "I don't think His Highness is tempted. Frightened, perhaps."

#

Motion came back to Ramses in teasing increments, until he was able to stand. He tested his strength against the cuffs until his skin was raw and the cuffs were slick with blood. He tried and failed to yank the chains out of the wall. A few days must've passed and the moon must be full outside, for Ramses' blood sang. If he wasn't weighed down by so many binding spells, he would've possessed enough strength to pull apart those chains link by link.

The only sounds Ramses could hear were the clangor of his own struggles and the infuriating, unidentifiable squawking. Ramses' attention refocused when he heard the clicks of hobnailed boots approach the room. The dungeon doors glowed and swung open. Someone with long blond hair walked in, stopping at a spot roughly in the center of the cell. The wolf mask was recognizable, and the young man, who still owed Ramses his soul, had exchanged the cloak for a simple but impressively tailored robe of ermine and velvet. Royal attire. Completed with ruffs.

_His Highness._

_The Cursed Prince._

Rage drew out Ramses' magic with a roaring intensity that momentarily overpowered his binds and made the walls tremble. The wolf mask splintered and clattered to the ground, revealing a strikingly exquisite face. Ramses hurled himself at the man, summoning as much physical strength as he could, until the chains pulled taut and the cuffs scraped more bits of flesh off.

Exactly twenty links, Ramses realized, allowed the width of two fingers between the furthest he could reach and the blond's chosen spot. If he unfurled his tongue, he could lick the man's face, but the chains would sooner dislocate his shoulder than allow him closer. The man's skin was not flawless. A jagged scar, so faded that it looked like an illusion, ran straight down his right cheekbone. You could only see the imperfection if you were close enough to kiss.

"The reputations of an Original's strength does not do you justice." The prince had a voice like honeyed wine and his soft, pleasant tone didn't match the pointed echoes of boredom and disdain. He made a gesture with his hand and the pressure pressing against Ramses' jaw lifted, allowing the demon enough range of motion to test his jaw and bare his teeth.

"In Myksos," said Ramses. His words, spoken in unaccented Tyné tongue, scratched a painful path out of his throat. "Not even the weakest demon will deign to restrain a prisoner with magic."

"By definition, you're my pet," said the blond. His words elicited a low growl. Ramses jerked and heaved against his constraints, but his body began to protest against the pointless torture. The collar around Ramses' neck pulsed and tightened when the blond eyed it. His captor had the audacity to appear politely vexed. "Lyron advised me to kill you, but the power you gave me will die with you."

Ramses said, "Secrets fester and multiply like rats in the dark, little prince."

"You'd forgive me for trying to stay alive, Ramses," said the young man. Something must've flashed across Ramses' face. The blond added, "I know you are the Prophet Slayer. When you tried to take my soul, why did you call me Zephyr?"

With his magic paralyzed, Ramesses could only see the shadow of the amber shard in the blond's soul. He could still see the wisps of the young man's soul, but they were blurry and distorted, like a pebble at the bottom of a pool. When Ramesses cast his gaze downward for a moment, he noticed that the ends of the blond's hair almost reached his knees - a hairstyle used by only one class of humans. Sneering, Ramses asked, "Is it the tradition of Tyné royalty to wear their hair like a Myksosian pleasure slave or is it just you?"

Upon closer inspection, Ramses noticed an erased imprint on the now visible soul, like a dog's piss-mark right next to Ramses' claim. Another demon had accessed the prince, but sexually instead of spiritually. An emotion Ramses didn't care to define roiled in his empty belly. Physically, Ramses stared at the aristocratic slope of the blond's cheek and he inhaled deeply, mockingly lewd. There was a faint fragrance of lotus. Ramses murmured, "It's just you. I can still smell the demon's touches."

In the ensuing silence, the squawking sounded twice. Then, the blond said, "Yes. I've fucked one of your kind before."

"You didn't do the fucking," said Ramses. This was fun. Fun _ny_. If he'd known what kind of stories a soul could reveal, he might have toyed with his previous victims a bit more. The cuffs pressed painfully against the raw welts when Ramses chuckled, but Ramses easily ignored the dull scratches of physical pain. "All that practiced equanimity in your pretty eyes doesn't help you hide anything, darling. I have a most intimate access to your soul now."

There was another stretch of silence, thicker than the first, in which the prince simply regarded him. Then, he lifted a hand, and turned it so his palm faced upward. Ramses expected some lashes of physical punishment, but the energy swirling about the white boots only transformed the pieces of his broken mask into a chair. The polished wooden chair, glowing purple with residue magic, had an ornate back panel and padded armrests.

The blond took a seat, one leg delicately folded over the other, one silk clad calf pressing into the other. An elbow rested against the armrest, but not with enough pressure to dent the fabric. His blue eyes, which reflected the purple of his magic and adapted a shade not unlike delphinium, trailed down the length of Ramses' body. Then, their eyes met again.

Entirely composed, he began to speak, " _Your_  eyes tell me that you hate yourself. You wish to be dead, but something's forcing you to stay alive. A divine ambition?" The timbre of disinterest, if anything, had amplified. Idly, the blond picked at the ruffs at his left wrist. The delphinium-colored gaze dropped from Ramses' eyes to his necklace. "Your victory over a Lile Crocodile is the proudest moment of your life."

The blond's attention flicked downward, like a snake slithering down a tree. "Despite your arrogance, there's a part of you that is ashamed of yourself, of your body. You mitigate your contempt by wearing restrictive, uncomfortable clothes."

Chains clinked when Ramses stepped back and narrowed his eyes at the man, glare piercing the neck as if he could burn a hole right through the pale skin. The pleased upturn of pale lips couldn't be called a smile when their owner's eyes had the same flinty quality as his voice. "You just swallowed a hastily assembled denial. You've always been an aggressive, competitive man. You'd hate to sound  _less intelligent_."

By now, the blond's eyes were on his nails. Ramses gritted his teeth and watched him slant his hand this way, that way, as if fascinated by how the magic torchlight reflected off the slightly polished ovals. The prince continued, "A muscle jumps in your neck when you are angry. Your shoulders are tense. You're imagining with pleasure how much you want to rip out my throat. You forgot to blink. Your breaths are slowing down because you're afraid that your inhales, slower and more forced than your exhales, might give something away, like how -"

The blond's hand fell away. He sat up, back straight and legs uncrossed. Ramses keenly heard his heartbeat drum against his throat, four times in the caesura. Then, a man's silhouette appeared at the entrance and blocked light from the hallway. He wore the same style of robes as the blond, but he dressed in green and black instead of gold and white.

"Brother," said the blond. He hadn't turned around. "I don't remember extending an invitation."

The last time Ramses saw Prince Cyrillus, Ramses was a vizier of Myksos and Prince Cyrillus was five years old, visiting. The little boy who played with lion cubs and tried to sneak Sycamore figs from the Pharaoh's plate was now a young lord with a calm gaze and a stately gait. Tall, with bronzed skin and dark hair, Prince Cyrillus looked nothing like the average water-washed Tyné citizen. Or his brother.

"Aloysius," said Prince Cyrillus. Ramses jolted out of his stupor when he realized that he finally knew the name of his captor.  _Aloysius_  was a rarely uttered name. Most Tynians instead referred to the emperor's younger son as the Cursed Prince. Cursed, because he was the offspring of Emperor Leroy and his sister, the Dark Priestess Tiahna.

Prince Cyrillus came close enough to rest a gloved hand on the Aloysius' shoulder. Ramses saw Aloysius stiffen with the intention to throw off Prince Cyrillu's hand, but the hand began to rub circles and the blond allowed his brother to coax him into standing. Prince Cyrillus then turned him so they stood face to face. "Father sent me here. With your Trials drawing so near, Father wonders why you decided to stay in this wayward fort for another week."

Aloysius said, "You mean, Lyron sent you a message and you convinced Father to let you come spy on me."

"Father sent me here," said Prince Cyrillus. His voice adapted a tender quality that reminded Ramses of olive oil. "With his griffin."

"You flew here on Fenelon?" Childish joy was briefly evident in Aloysius' voice, like a glimmer of sunlight. There was a rustle of velvet as Prince Cyrillus lifted and hand and reached for his brother's cheek, but Aloysius slapped the hand away. The flinty tone was back when Aloysius next said, "You didn't write to me even once in the last six months."

"Father kept me busy. State affairs and revenue adjustments," said Prince Cyrillus. "The seal-bearers from Myksos have arrived and we must host them graciously."

"This is why I hate returning to Alryne. This never-ending stream of political prattle, " said Aloysius. Aloysius didn't move when Prince Cyrillus reached for his cheek again. Ramses watched as Prince Cyrillus came closer and brushed his lips against his brother's forehead.

Despite the avalanche of tumbling thoughts, Ramses forced his boiling anger to quiet into a simmer and concentrated his attention on the brothers. Instincts told him he was about to collect useful intelligence. Even with Ramses' heightened senses, he had to strain to hear Prince Cyrillu's next words, "You'll be crowned once you complete your Trials. When that time comes, you can't hear less political prattle even if you wish to."

Almost sullenly, Aloysius said, "Don't you wish Father could crown you?"

Ramses marked the exchange with contemplative fascination. He'd heard that Prince Cyrillus was the son of a conquered princess, conceived right before Emperor Leroy killed her father and annexed her country. With his lips only an inch away from Aloysiu's forehead, Prince Cyrillus said, "You have the only claim to the crown. Father will never allow Elthemian blood on Tyné's throne."

There was a stilted quality in Prince Cyrillu's words, but Aloysius appeared curiously oblivious. His eyes were closed and his body innocently leaned into his brother's. Prince Cyrillus took Aloysius' hand, the black velvet of his glove a stark contrast against Aloysiu's bare white skin, and tugged him toward the exit. "Come, let's go take a ride on Fenelon."

Hand in hand, the two brothers walked out the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revised 11.11.17
> 
> An endless amount of gratitude to K.R. Morrighan for beta-reading and helping me fine tune a few things :)
> 
> Comments/feedback appreciated!


	3. Chapter 2

Time after the princes' departure lapsed in complete darkness and silence until-

"My name is Rard," said the chubby boy inching toward Ramses. When Ramses bared his teeth, Rard kicked one foot into the other and tripped. The ground trembled with the impact of his fall and his double chin flapped against his leather cuirass. Sounding genuinely concerned, Rard said, "His Highness said we'll leave you here if you don't cooperate. Once winter arrives, it's so cold that ice can form in your mouth."

Ramses laughed and Rard appeared momentarily bewildered.

"It's easier to escape when you're out in the open fields. Surely, you're smart enough to know that," said Rard. His sincere, nervous squeak of a voice cost the words their intended derision and Ramses wondered who the words actually belonged to. Scratching the back of his neck with a few furious strokes, Rard heaved himself up and came closer. "His Highness also said, if you behave, he'll tell you about The Tell-Tale Glass. He knows where it is."

Uncurling his fist, Ramses said, "His Highness is considerate."

"You're just extremely special," said Rard, cheerfully. As Rard detached the chains that stretched from the wall to the bloodstained cuffs, Ramses shook away the dull prickles that knotted his muscles together. Dried blood scratched against skin and the idea that he'd been bound like a commonplace criminal made Ramses angry enough to  _kill_  as Rard added, "His Highness usually despises your kind, but he became tempted beyond sense when he saw you and wouldn't even listen to Master Lyron or Captain Desmond."

Rather than wonder how the glacial-eyed blond convinced anyone he was tempted beyond sense or kill Rard, Ramses tried to summon his magic. The binds sealing his powers were as strong as they were the last time he tested them, a few minutes ago. The collar around his neck felt sturdier than steel. While Rard adjust the constraints, Ramses asked, "How many links?"

"Six between your arms. Nine between your legs," said Rard. "His Highness-"

"Appreciates precision," said Ramses.

Rard gave him a puzzled look. "Said you should be able to defend yourself."

Outside, Ramses and the guards who'd joined the escort mission with pointed swords avoided a thin layer of glaze on the ground while Rard waddled straight onto the substance. Laughter rang out in the courtyard. Four boys, sons of dignitaries based on how the soldiers knelt in greeting, walked up as Rard flushed and wobbled from side to side trying to wrench his gummed soles free.

An amalgam of green sigils, visible to only Ramses' eyes, marked the focal of one of the boy's magic and he was the only one in the group with a magical signature. The boy smirked at the tallest boy in the group and said, "Gilbert, you are right. He does tip like a Fall-Me-Not doll."

"He's just as round, too. Yesterday, I saw the townsmen string a man upside down and saw him in half for selling his soul to a demon," said Gilbert. His vivid green eyes scrutinized Ramses and his fingers idly toyed with a golden griffin pinned to his cape. "I postulate that if they had cut Lard instead, he would have bled enough grease for all the wagon wheels in Tyné."

Laughter broke out again, loudly from the group of boys and quietly from the soldiers who turned away. When the snickering subsided, the boys turned their attention to Ramses. Ramses calculated that the swords would reach him before he could seize any of the boys, so he stayed still while the boy with magic said, "The demon that filled His Highness with temptation after one look. What's your name?"

Eagerly, Rard contributed, "His Highness said we can call him Ramses."

"Shut up, Lard," said Gilbert. "No matter how you parrot His Highness like the brainless twit you are, he'd never acknowledge you over the dirt under his boots."

"Why does he have all these wounds? I wonder if the prince's fetishes are unconventional?" asked one of the other boys. Encouraged by the wide-eyed responses, he continued, "I hear from the mages that demons are willing to perform perversions that will make the most experienced harlots blush."

A shadow fell across his face when Gilbert stepped up to him with a scowl, but a horn sounded and all the boys glanced to their left. Mind reeling, Ramses entertained the idea of attacking the boys even if he would suffer a few stab wounds. Before the urge to draw blood fully incarnated, Gilbert gestured at the six soldiers to follow him and led his gang away.

Rard, who left his boots on the ground after Ramses' suggestion, hopped away with another ground-shaking thud and ebulliently continued to lead the way. In response to Ramses' perplexed look, Rard grinned and said, "Don't mind Gilbert. He's Archduke Seymour's son. Plus, I'm used to this. When I was young, mama and I were too poor to afford shoes."

In the large tiltyard where the prince's men gathered, Ramses noticed that both Lyron and Desmond were absent. Pennons and banners with the prince's golden griffin emblem fluttered in the breeze. Gilbert and his gang, each mounting a handsome horse, led a train of ten covered wagons. Roughly fifty cavalries and horseback archers rode on either side of the wagons.

"A rather modest retinue," said Ramses.

"His Highness assigned hundreds of soldiers away to help with the drought," said Rard. "He dispatched Captain Desmond and Master Lyron last night. We're only a couple of hours away from the capital, so we should be safe."

Aloysius, who stood next to a gray mare, wore the same voluminous cloak as he had in the field of delphiniums, held by the same pin with the periwinkle jewel. His hair, which Ramses thought would appear more stunning if soaked in his own blood, dovetailed into a strict plaid. The silver mask covering his face was ineffably plain.

In front of the prince, Ramses remained upright and did not kneel the way Rard did. Aloysius did not spare him a single glance as he said, "Rise. You convinced him. Thank you, Rard."

Something startled Rard so much that he fell back on his knees. Looking close to tears, he stuttered out, "You- You know my name, Your Highness."

"Yes," said Aloysius. While Ramses wondered if he could wrap his chains around Aloysius' slender throat before one of the eight swords in their proximity skewered him, Aloysius told Rard, "Brother used to say that dignity can only be surrendered, not taken away. Perhaps the words can serve you."

Mutedly, Rard stared.

"Keep up the impressive work," said Aloysius, when he noticed that Rard wasn't able to move or speak. The horns sounded again. With a gloved hand on the hilt of his sword, Aloysius turned away. If Ramses felt angry before, his blood  _boiled_  at the anti-climatic neglect. Ramses moved forward and Aloysius warned, "You ride on Rard's wagon. If you have any fancy agendas, I hope your intelligence catches up to you before the arrows do.  _Go_."

Once comfortably seated next to Rard, Ramses said, "He's a delight, isn't he?"

Beaming brighter than the rising sun, Rard replied, "You don't need to see his face to know he is the most beautiful man in the four kingdoms."

Ramses sat in front of sacks filled with provision and a golden cage that housed a phoenix hatchling with tufts of gold and red feathers. The bird, fast asleep, sporadically made sounds in its dreams and Ramses identified it as the source of the squawking he'd been hearing in the cell. Smiling indulgingly, Rard explained, "The prince chased midwives' tales for six months before he caught one. Took us all over the country."

#

Approximately four hours into their travel, a red firework exploded in the distance and previously concealed bandits emerged from behind boulders, undergrowths and covered pits. They charged with the ferocity of a tidal wave, brandishing weapons and bellowing threats. Aloysius halted his horse, made a signal, and soldiers began to move forward.

As the bandits swarmed closer, Ramses briefly entertained an impression that the bandits wanted to frighten away a less experienced troop as opposed to actually engage anyone in battle. The prince made another gesture. The archers rearranged themselves to snipe dozens of charging bandits. Men toppled, but the hundreds of bandits had an unreasonable size advantage against the prince's personal retinue. After another gesture from Aloysius, Gilbert and the other boys rode out, each leading a single file of cavalry.

The formation, Ramses recognized with a pang of nostalgia and heartache, was inspired by a risky but highly effective Myksosian one that allowed superiorly skilled warriors to slither through the enemy troops like a viper in a rabbit den and defend a single locus. Relying on speed and strength, the tactic aimed to divide a larger army into disoriented and easy-to-kill groups. Fully protected from all sides, Aloysius sat still in his inlaid saddle like the eye of a hurricane, looking as if he wished he'd brought a book to pass the time.

Soon, a single-eyed bandit caught sight of Ramses and came toward him with a spiked mace poised to take his life.  _His Highness said you should be able to defend yourself._  Slowly, Ramses slid off the wagon. Even after twenty three years, he still craved the unique adrenaline rush of engaging in close quarter combat amidst the chaos of a battlefield. Once the man was close enough, Ramses leaped over the man's head, twisted in the air to pick him up and threw him into the spear of another charging bandit.

Both of the men stayed down, but more took their place.

In Myksos, the academies trained warriors how to fight while bound. Ramming a combination of chain or cuff into the sharp steel and bodies seeking his life, Ramses never needed more than two maneuvers to fall a man and he gradually became aware of Aloysius watching him. When Ramses took down six men, at once and with each other's weapon, he felt Aloysius' attention change from mild curiosity to attentive caution.

If Ramses thought about attacking the prince's men or escaping, the plans dissipated when he realized that the archers had spread to the perimeters to shoot any retreating bandits. With the exception of Rard, who fumbled to defend himself against his first opponent, the prince's men and had no trouble whittling down an enemy organization at least four times their size. Aloysius had, Ramses realized as the fighting died down, also strategized so that multiple arrows were trained at Ramses the whole time.

Casually, Ramses kicked a large slab of rock into the face of the last bandit running toward him.

In the same move, Ramses snatched up a fallen dagger with his teeth, glanced at the man who owed him his soul and hurled the dagger. With expert ease, Aloysius tilted his body and dodged the sharp blade. When the blade suddenly reversed in its track to return to Ramses, Aloysius was less prepared. Ramses saw blue eyes widened fractionally before the prince hurriedly leaned away.

The blade sliced through the air, an inch away from his throat.

Then, the prince snatched the dagger out of its flight and flung it back. Ramses meant to brush the blade aside with his cuffs, but the blade was enhanced. A crushing weight slammed into his cuffs and threw Ramses on the ground. By the time the shock dissipated, Aloysius had gracefully dismounted.

"Heel," said Aloysius.

The collar pulsed and squeezed the air of out Ramses' throat. His legs obeyed before his mind processed the word and he went down like a dog. A faint echo of the academy's first commandment, that _a warrior's knees must never touch the soil_ , flitted away with his ability to control his own body. The sheer amount of hatred and anger smoldering his nerves should be enough to break the spell, but it wasn't. As Ramses' struggled, two soldiers took Rard's single opponent captive and the rest of the prince's soldiers began to secure the premise.

"Break his fingers," said Gilbert. "Joint by joint."

The man, who had a grossly enlarged left cheek, yowled when the soldiers obeyed, groveling in a manner not unlike Ramses' debtors when he went to collect their souls. Some of the soldiers searched the corpses, stripping them of weapons and valuables as Gilbert questioned the captive. Ramses' sharp ears caught a halted  _"Prince Cy-"_ in the mess of broken sobs about the man's family, pregnant wife and elderly mother.

"In order to reach Horsfall Pass, this group must have a Command Medallion," said Gilbert. The sobs turned into pleas for death as Gilbert pulled out a knife and suggested, "We'll see if you'll open your mouth when I peel you."

One of the soldiers searching the bodies came over and darted a nervous glance at Ramses before he reported to Aloysius with a shake of his head. The soldier's mouth formed the words,  _zero casualties_. After dismissing the man, Aloysius walked up to Gilbert and the sniveling captive, saying, "No luck? Let me borrow your knife."

The blue pearls on the knife's handle gleamed when Aloysius took the blade and moved, so quickly that only Ramses' eyes could've caught the deadly descent. Seconds later, the man's mouth slid open in shock and Aloysius held out the knife. Gilbert, who took back his still-clean knife suspiciously, said, "Nice."

"I learned the trick in Myksos. The demons measure the speed of their assassins by how long before blood begins to spill," said Aloysius. He gestured for his soldiers to begin their journey once again and the pressure holding Ramses down lifted. Watching blood seep from the man's slit throat, Ramses found a small amount of pleasure in the fact that Aloysius was no faster than the slowest Myksosian assassin.

#

By the time they arrived in Alryne, the sun was at the horizon and the golden domes of the palace roofs blazed. Informally named the Palace of Maze, the imperial palace in Alryne was built atop of the most intricate labyrinth in the world. The prince led his units to a courtyard where stable boys took their horses and servants took their belongings. Desmond, the prince's captain, was already there and waiting.

Immediately disobeying the order for him to stay where he was, Ramses headed toward Aloysius. Once Ramses strutted up to the prince, Aloysius held out his hand. A leash manifested between Aloysius' hand and the collar on Ramses' neck. Seething, Ramses lunged at the man with a growl.

With his lips curved into a serene smile, Aloysius turned his palm upward and the collar grew so hot Ramses briefly lost consciousness. When Ramses' mind was operational again, Desmond had took Aloysius' cloak and was saying, "…Lyron and I met up with the rest of your army. After intercepting their reinforcements, we ambushed their camp in the Terrible Thickets. Where were you attacked?"

"At Horsfall Pass," said Aloysius. Ignoring the impulse to throw himself at the prince again, Ramses held back to assess the situation. The helplessness was bizarre. Even without magic, Ramses identified nine ways to physically take down the prince but the collar began to warm again and the prince turned to address him, "Must you make a spectacle out of yourself? Behave."

After a harsh yank on the leash, Ramses stumbled after the two men. With each step, Ramses imagined a different and bloodier way to kill Aloysius but the collar would tighten each time his pace faltered. Once they crossed a drawbridge and started toward the gold-wrought arches of the palace entryway. Desmond said, "A dangerous demon pet isn't a wise idea. Don't you need to feed him with your blood?"

At the mention of blood, Ramses realized why he felt so hungry since his capture. The collared pet of humans drank the blood of their master as sustenance instead of visiting the rejuvenating crystals or consuming souls. Entirely pathetic and Ramses was inclined to agree when Aloysius said, "No, starvation won't kill him. Don't we have more important matters to discuss?"

"Emperor Leroy asked you to report to the throne room immediately," said Desmond. The prince gave a dismissive wave and gestured for Desmond to continue speaking. With noticeable hesitation, Desmond reached into a pocket and withdrew a medallion. When Ramses craned his head, he saw a bronze lion on the plaque. Cyrillus' emblem. "We found the Command Medallion that allowed the false bandits into Horsfall. It's evidence."

"You found nothing," said Aloysius, as he plucked the medallion from Desmond's hands. There was a glow of purple, but the bronze lion remained unchanged and Aloysius briefly ran his thumb over the raised figure. After Desmond fixed him with a disapproving gaze, Aloysius relented, "That wasn't meant to be found."

"Aloysius," said Desmond.

Stowing away the medallion into a pocket beneath an embroidered griffin, Aloysius said, "I trust you."

"You are of age to complete the Trials," said Desmond, as the sentries opened the doors for them. Inside, the palace was splendid. Magic torches lit up the high ceiling and strings of pearls hung from the rich tapestries decorating the walls. Glancing at the corridors the prince led them down, Desmond looked part perturbed and part uneasy as he continued, "I hope you never hear what some of the lesser men say, but there may be merit-"

"Merit in the claims that if my brother intends to slide his sword instead of his cock down my throat, he best do so now?" asked Aloysius. Jerking his gaze from the monster gems twinkling in the silver frames of murals and portraits, Ramses saw Desmond give a full-bodied cringe. In the same pleasant tone, Aloysius told Ramses, "Things are painted with poison here, darling. The more beautiful it is, the faster it'd send you begging."

"That is what," said Desmond. "I try not to think."

"Try harder," said Aloysius.

Obsequious servants bowed out of the way as the prince took them down the carpeted marble floor, down several dazzling corridors and down two flights of spiraling stairs. When the decorations began to feel more scandalous than glamorous, Desmond said, "This really isn't a path to the throne room."

"Of course not.  _You_  can go report to my Father," said Aloysius. There was another, almost playful, tug on the leash. "I'm going to have some fun with my pet."

#

Witnessing the debauchery in Tyné innermost chambers was not fun. Ramses knew that Tyné's codes of conduct glorified chastity into a timeless virtue -men and women were not to touch each other until marriage- but the stripping, groping and rutting in the chamber would suggest there were no other restrictions. Not even looking at the ceiling spared Ramses, for the ceiling was made to reflect every detail in the room.

After murmuring a spell that locked Ramses' hands behind his back, melded his jaw together and forced him to kneel on a cushion, Aloysius elegantly stretched out next to him with one leg draped over the other and an elbow pressed into a low table. Instinctively, Ramses flexed his muscles and tried to call on his magic, but exhaustion had settled deeply into his joints and grappling against Aloysius' powers with only willpower proved futile.

Despite his suggestions, Aloysius appeared to have no interest in anything except the plate of refreshments in the middle of the low table. When a male performer came out on the stage with a woman, gasps echoed and someone whistled. In the whir of noises that ensued when the man cupped one of her exposed breasts and she spread her legs for the audience, Ramses' sharp ears caught the sound of footsteps approaching from behind them.

"My prince," someone said, "and the demon that tempted him beyond sense?"

One side of Aloysius' lips quirked upward, but he didn't turn away from the plate. The speaker was startlingly handsome and looked as if he'd assembled his face with the best features of different people. His voice gave the impression that he'd teased the sounds from the darkest shadows in the room, "You're already here and ignoring your father's orders. I heard you were ambushed by Elthemian hooligans. The uncle?"

"Overstepping boundaries, aren't you?" Aloysius' breathy inflection sounded flirtatious to Ramses' ears.

"I only overstep the boundaries my prince allows me to," said the man. Resting the tip of his fingers on Aloysius' knee, he slid into the space next to the prince in a sweeping move. Once comfortably seated, the man began walking his fingers up Aloysius' arm and the prince leaned into a pose that beckoned like a siren's song.

Turning away, Ramses realized he was the only one in the room not intimately engaged.

On the stage, the man and woman had undressed each other after an elaborate dance. In their gyrating shadows, a master looked to be breaking his bruised and whimpering collared pet with a magic whip. On Ramses' right, two women moaned each other names, fingers pressed deeply into various orifices of each other's body. Partners were occasionally exchanged, but no one came within two feet of a member of the opposite sex.

With nowhere proper to settle his eyes, Ramses turned back to the pair with the most clothes on and paused. Letters spelling out names were intermittently drawn on Aloysius' body between non-descriptive touches that unfastened a button and teased his golden braid loose. The coy splay of Aloysius' body begged for more than caresses, but his eyes were cold enough to bring a chill into the heat-drenched room.

After twelve names, the man moved to rest his lips against Aloysius' clothed shoulder and the prince said, "Is that all?"

"My prince doesn't have enough on his hands?" asked the man.

"Then," said Aloysius. He ran a finger down the man's neck and there was a faint purple glow. Five buttons fell undone when he trailed his hand down the man's chest. "Leave."

Looking amused, the man slid away from Aloysius and stood up. His eye, dancing with mischief, briefly met Ramses' and his smile stretched wider. After a flinty look from Aloysius killed his unspoken words, he mouthed  _tempted beyond sense?_  and drifted over to join a couple on their left. Nauseated by the musk of sex and sweat that was so strong he could almost taste, Ramses wrenched his jaw free and said, "You do a rotten job at acting tempted beyond sense. Are we done here?"

"I wouldn't be tempted by a demon even if I was beyond sense," said Aloysius. Casting a disinterested look at the man and woman fornicating on stage, Aloysius rested his elbow on the edge of the low table again. Then, like a cat who just found a mouse, Aloysius sat up straighter and said, "You hate being ignored."

"You have a peculiar sense of humor," said Ramses.

Aloysius said, "My pet doesn't like it?"

"And a unique penchant for questions with obvious answers," said Ramses.

With a sudden smile that reminded Ramses of a Lile crocodile's, Aloysius reached for the tray in the middle of the low table. Nimbly, he picked up a white confection. Ramses thought the prince was going to hold it out the way he'd seen some other occupants of the room did, but Aloysius brought the marzipan to his own mouth and arched closer, until Ramses felt the brush of the ermine trimming his robes.

When the tip pressed against Ramses' lips, Aloysius said, "Open your mouth, Ramses."

Partly confused and partly alarmed, Ramses held himself completely still and Aloysius eased into a different position. The marble-like skin of his neck glowed under the magic torches and Ramses heard the murmur of his pulse atop of the lewd buzz all the other sounds in the room became. Blood. Ramses' lips parted and Aloysius pushed the candy into his mouth with a silky,  _"That's it. Take all of it in."_

Heat coiled from Aloysius' body, almost as palpable as the lotus fragrance and a few strands of golden hair fell to tickle against Ramses' thigh. Ramses knew there were more important things like the Tell-Tale Glass, Zephyr and escape, but the weight against his tongue was sweet, Aloysius' breath purred against his lips and one of the prettiest faces Ramses ever remembered seeing was  _right_   _there,_ underneath the vexing silver mask.

In the instance before their lips touched, Aloysius said, "I will shave off any inch of your skin that touches mine."

Artlessly, Ramses broke off the marzipan and chomped through the confection. The drums and the slapping sound of sex muted the crunches, but the loudest sound yet was the sound of Ramses' heart beating against his ribcage. Noticing that almost every single pair of eyes, including the hazel pair of the man who just entered, was on them, Ramses forced the sugar down his throat and hissed, "Must you make a spectacle out of yourself?"

"I'm making a spectacle out of you," said Aloysius. Based on how the attention of the room swiveled to the hazel-eyed man as he picked his way toward them, the other prince didn't frequent and he didn't approve of what he saw here. Aloysius spat out his share of the marzipan near his brother's feet and said, "You have me tempted beyond sense."

Just before Ramses could retort, Aloysius detected his brother's presence and whipped around. Appearing nonplussed by the faint blush that stained what showed of Aloysius' pale cheek, Prince Cyrillus picked up and peered at the rejected morsel. Even without Aloysius' spell, Ramses thought he would've stayed as still as a status when Prince Cyrillus crouched and held the snowy confit to Alsoysius' mouth.

Mildly, he said, "Aloysius, don't put it in your mouth if you can't get it down your throat."

After discarding the scrap and wiping his fingers, Prince Cyrillus brushed away the smear of white on his brother's lips with a small sigh. Sounding as if it was the thousandth time he had to relay a similar message, Prince Cyrillus said, "Father ordered you to come to the throne room as soon as you arrive at Alryne. He is not pleased by your detour."

"Brother?" said Aloysius. His voice was uncharacteristically small and he began to pick at the ruffs around his left wrist. Some of the tension in his body melted away when Prince Cyrillus, with a hand curved around his brother's jaw, leaned over and kissed his forehead. After Prince Cyrillus drew away, Aloysius moved to fasten his buttons, but pulled his hand away to tug on Ramses' leash. Hair loose and shirt disheveled, Aloysius said, "Let me put my pet away first."

"No," said Prince Cyrillus. "Father wants to see him."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to K.R. Morrighan for beta-reading :)
> 
> Comments & constructive criticism appreciated!


	4. Chapter 3

The halls of the palace may have been glamorous, but there wasn't a word grand enough to describe the throne room. Extraordinary gems gnarled in gold filigrees bedecked Emperor Leroy's trophies for the world to behold. Amongst the collection, Ramses identified the standard of Elthem, the head of a unicorn and the sacred cloak of Zephyr.

A perfectly preserved dragon, last of its kind, stared down at Ramses with reposeful eyes from atop of the emperor's metal throne.

Between the banners that represented the seven noble families of Tyné, Lyron and Gilbert knelt on one knee, heads dipped low. Desmond and a ghoulish-looking cardinal in red liturgical vestments stood on a raised platform that staged the throne. Emperor Leroy, who looked just as imposing as he did twenty-five years ago, fixed his gaze at a spot above Aloysius's head when Ramses and the two princes walked in.

Prince Cyrillus knelt and said, "Father."

"Your Majesty," said Aloysius. He knelt, but invited himself up before he finished his greeting.

Following Prince Cyrillus's lead, Ramses curled his knees until both hovered an inch above ground and bent forward. While walking down the corridors, Ramses had wondered if Emperor Leroy would remember him, but the silver eyes, still fixed on a spot above Aloysius's head, revealed nothing. Motioning for everyone to rise, Emperor Leroy said, "How kind of you to finally join us, my son."

"I didn't want to," said Aloysius. "Just so you know."

Emperor Leroy's heavily ringed fingers clenched on his armrest and the tiny bells trimming the embroidered velvet chimed. The tension that'd gathered in the room diffused when the emperor, after exhaling through gritted teeth, said, "We are nonetheless glad you decided to join us. Gilbert was telling us about the bandit attack."

"I tried to interrogate one of them," said Gilbert, as Ramses glanced around. The dragon rising over the throne seemed to have locked its crimson gaze on him, but Ramses was sure that was how every person in the throne room felt. Though imperceptible to humans, Gilbert's voice fluttered when he said, "He had an Elthemian disease. A swollen left cheek "

"Why did your interrogation fail?" asked Emperor Leroy.

"Because I killed him for wasting everyone's time," said Aloysius, lifting a hand in front of him. Ramses thought he would pretend to be fascinated by his nails again, but Aloysius toyed around with his signet ring, polishing the rearing griffin with a gold and white corner of his sleeves and looking everywhere except at his father. "Your Majesty commanded haste in my return."

"We didn't command your haste into a whorechamber," said Emperor Leroy. With more control, "The conspirator left a Command medallion."

"Was there one?" asked Aloysius. Turning to Ramses, "Do you remember what I did with the medallion, darling?"

"You," said Ramses. The bronze lion medallion that Desmond found in the bandit's camp was supposed to convict Prince Cyrillus of conspiring to kill his brother. Aloysius killed the captive because he'd been about to confess  _Prince Cyrillus._ Forcing himself to sound just as detached as Aloysius, Ramses said, "You placed it in your pocket."

Aloysius pointed at the pocket underneath the embroidered griffin and directed his next question to Desmond, "This one?"

After Desmond's "Yes" Aloysius reached into the pocket and pulled out a medallion with a golden griffin. He must have replaced Prince Cyrillus's medallion with his own after taking it from Desmond. An expression of disapproval was back on his captain's face while Prince Cyrillus looked shaken.

Fixing the cardinal with a piercing look, Aloysius said, "Conspiring with bandits to murder myself would be  _treason_ , Your Majesty. I wouldn't do that."

"No, you wouldn't do anything damnable like treason," the cardinal rasped in a ligneous pitch that sounded like wood scraping on stone.

He'd spoken out of turn, but the emperor didn't interrupt and the accent caught Ramses's attention. Searching beneath the scars and rotting flesh, there were classic Elthemian traits of an aquiline nose and wide-set eyes. With a flash of insight, Ramses recognized the "Disgrace of Elthem," the treasonist who unlocked the doors to the impregnable City of Walls and allowed Tyné to conquer Elthem thirty years ago.

The last prince of Elthem continued, "It's almost like selling your soul to a demon."

"We do not speak of such depravity here," said Emperor Leroy. Staring at a spot above Ramses's head, he said, "Speaking of demons, what's this we hear about a demon pet?"

"I was bored," said Aloysius.

" _Bored?_ " A weight hammered Emperor Leroy's inflection from to restrained exasperation to open anger. "When we were your age, we-"

"-Conquered half of Elthem, slew a dragon and penned a religion," said Aloysius. "May I return to the whorechamber?"

Emperor Leroy said, "We only have one son and he can't do a single thing that makes us proud."

"Your Majesty, you have two sons," said Aloysius. "Just because you are sightless doesn't mean you must choose to be blind."

Emperor Leroy slammed a fist onto the armrest and Prince Cyrillus gave a strangled cry. Blossoming across his face was a welt, raw and angry under the glimmer of the emperor's golden magic. With eyes as sharp as a freshly-whetted blade, Aloysius held up his hand. Spirals of purple energy bristled against his skin, but the welt on Prince Cyrillus's face began to blister and Aloysius bit down on his lips.

The purple glow withered away with Aloysius's glare and he said, "I was impolite. Father."

"Our son will learn how to command soldiers into a basic military formation even if we must beat the knowledge into you," said Emperor Leroy. Any confusion Ramses felt on Aloysius's behalf, any indignation he felt on Prince Cyrillus's behalf, trickled away when the emperor turned his sightless eyes on the spot above Ramses's head and ordered, "Shackle up that demon pet and throw him into the labyrinth with the rats. Our son has no need of distractions until he deigns to read The Chronicle of Wars at least once."

Though Ramses was not afraid of shackles or rats, rage congested all his senses when Aloysius gave him a victorious smirk. Before Ramses could make any ill-advised maneuvers, his collar warmed until a searing agony radiated from somewhere deeper than the bones of his body and Ramses strained all his muscles to not collapse to the ground. Gnashing his teeth, Ramses heard Aloysius drawl, "But I love him."

The look on Emperor Leroy's face was like thunder. Seconds before Emperor Leroy could decree a harsher punishment for Ramses, Prince Cyrillus, with rivulets of blood trickling onto his robes, knelt and said, "Perhaps Father will instead allow the demon to stay with me?"

Ramses narrowed his eyes at the kneeling form. Prince Cyrillus, who'd wholly ignored his existence up to now, might've protected him out of love for his younger brother or out of fear that Aloysius had an Original under his control. Aloysius and the cardinal looked concerned by the proposal, but Emperor Leroy grinned cruelly and said, "We approve."

"Thank you, Father," said Prince Cyrillus.

Speaking over his son, Emperor Leroy said, "We are tired. Council adjourned."

Dragging a expanse of velvet and pearls, the emperor stood from his throne and the ghoulish-looking cardinal stepped forward to guide the emperor to a chamber behind his throne. Gilbert started toward Aloysius while Lyron made his way toward Prince Cyrillus. Both were redirected to the exit when Desmond placed a hand on their shoulders and shook his head.

"I'm sorry," said Aloysius. He'd crouched beside his brother and purple magic flowed from his hand to the welt. "I hate returning to Alryne. Does it hurt a lot?"

By now, Ramses's collar cooled to a level where he was able to move without pushing his body to its limit and most of his senses returned. Prince Cyrillus gave a gentle smile, one that crinkled up the corners of his eyes and made him look more like a boy than a man. After the bright red scarred into a dark brown, he murmured, "If you were the one injured, it would've hurt a lot."

Desmond had left the doors opened when he exited and Ramses heard a susurration of gossip and questions as servants filed in to clean the room and guards took up their posts. One of the comments, whispered with conviction, was: "A son conceived with love is always more treasured than a son conceived after rape."

#

The next morning, Ramses rose with the sun. When the guards Prince Cyrillus assigned to shadow him didn't stop him, Ramses ventured out of his assigned bed-chamber and explored Prince Cyrillus's living quarters. Despite craving his freedom, the dozens of guards patrolling the halls made him reconsider any unwise impulses.

Nothing interested him until he found the prince's personal combat field.

Arranged in rows of twelve, one hundred forty-four porcelain vases stood in the middle of several towering weapon racks. Twenty-three years weren't enough to dilute the sweep of homesickness that crushed his chest and debilitated his mood. When he was still a vizier in Myksos, he'd built a similar enclosure for his own entertainment and he wondered what happened to the temple complex he had once called home.

Touching one of the vases, Ramses recalled all the vase games he'd played in Myksos. An Elthemian training method, warriors fought each other while balanced on the rims. With another hollow echo, Ramses remembered that he'd never been defeated on the vases before. While Ramses wondered whether the guards would allow him to test the weapons, Prince Cyrillus strolled out with a steel two-handed sword in his grip.

Prince Cyrillus brushed past him, still ignoring him. Ramses grabbed the prince's arm and asked, "Is there a reason you simultaneously protect yet ignore me?"

After gesturing for the guards to hold their swords and step back, Prince Cyrillus answered, "I feel uncomfortable when I look at you. I've yet to figure out why."

Surprised, Ramses said, "You're honest."

Searching Prince Cyrillus's face, Ramses noted that yesterday's welt was no more than a fading shadow. When Prince Cyrillus first failed to yank his arm out of Ramses's hold, the man finally met his eyes. Gradually, unease turned into faint curiosity. With his face scrunched into a thoughtful expression, Prince Cyrillus pulled a few more times.

Recognizing the test of strength, Ramses reciprocated in kind.

After he lost the tug of war, Prince Cyrillus chuckled, pointed at the weapon rack with his sword and said, "I did hear that you took out a dozen men while chained. Think you can beat me on the vases?"

A kind of delight that Ramses no longer thought himself capable of tugged his heart and Ramses selected a Myksosian two-handed sword in the prince's weapon collection. Once on the vases, Ramses discarded the sheathe and beckoned to Prince Cyrillus. When their swords met for the first time, Ramses said, "Perhaps you feel uncomfortable because you think I am a tool your brother will use against you."

"You think there's rivalry between me and my brother?"

"There's always rivalry between siblings," said Ramses. Especially half-brothers from different mothers. Queen Araminta, Prince Cyrillus's mother and the last princess of Elthem, was rumored to have raped Emperor Leroy and forced his hand in marriage to save her own life and the life of her brother. Both the cardinal and queen was realistically aspiring to place Prince Cyrillus on the throne.

Each of Prince Cyrillus's hits came harder than the last and when Prince Cyrillus suddenly lowered the force behind his strike, Ramses nearly tipped a vase over. Once Ramses was comfortably in offense again, he said, "It's not a coincidence that Tyné has seven noble families and Aloysius keeps four of their heirs in his retinue Or that he keeps Rard around so the four boys stay united in their belligerence against him."

"How long have you known him? Four days? I'll give you a week," said Prince Cyrillus. As Ramses righted himself in a stance on two vases, Prince Cyrillus leaped off his vase and approached in a flurry of steel and muscles. "I knew him long enough to know the first word he ever spoke was  _Cyri_. I love him."

"You think it was ever a lack of love that spills the blood of brothers vying for power?" Despite the harsh blows he needed to defend himself against and the vases wobbling under his feet, Ramses cracked a crooked smile. "Love decays when someone thinks their dignity is at risk of being taken away."

"Dignity can only be surrendered, not taken away," said Prince Cyrillus. Single-handedly pressing Ramses back with his two-handed sword, Prince Cyrillus suddenly drew a dagger. The dagger would've touched Ramses's throat had Ramses not caught Prince Cyrillus's wrist and shove the man away. Disengaging to catch his balance, Prince Cyrillus said, "A Myksosian vizier taught me that when he gave me this dagger."

Nostalgia punched him in the gut, stronger than the percussion of Prince Cyrillus's sword. He'd only been eighteen back then, and hopelessly naïve. A week before he first met Prince Cyrillus, he had killed a barbarian with that dagger and told his brother,  _"And that, little brother, is how you take down a fool."_

Was that even him?

"Why did you keep that?" asked Ramses. In the last dozen years, he'd desperately repressed his memories until all the years bled into one another and faces blurred into unrecognizable masses. Seeing an opening, he kicked off the vase, twisted his body in the air so he landed behind Prince Cyrillus and aimed for Prince Cyrillus's leg. "Ramses was just a fool."

"Ramses was called The Spirit of the Sun," said Prince Cyrillus, stressed tone sounding accusatory and heavy with thick breaths as he slammed his sword down on Ramses's. Vases trembled erratically beneath them, but both remained balanced as they danced over the rims."He defeated a Lile crocodile when he was only thirteen, led six hundred men in a victory against six thousand when he was fifteen and became a vizier of Myksos when he was eighteen."

"He was also dead before his twentieth birthday," snapped Ramses, who spun out of the onslaught's way when Prince Cyrillus changed into a combat style that utilized both the sword and dagger. He didn't want to remember, didn't want to acknowledge that his past was a part of him. Bitterly, he swiped the steel blade at Prince Cyrillus's throat and watched as the man easily dodged the blow. "The brighter you burn, the faster you extinguish."

After a jumping maneuver, Prince Cyrillus's sword screeched as he ran the steel down the length of Ramses's sword. "When I first saw you, I wondered if- and you share his name but you look to be the same age as me."

"Ramses is  _dead_ ," Ramses repeated. The world spun. The vase wobbled under his feet and Ramses quickly leap away before Prince Cyrillus could push him off balance. Luckily, the vase righted itself and Ramses steadied himself right before Prince Cyrillus attacked again. He was entirely in defensive now. "Don't feel so nostalgic over your brother's lack of sense."

"Right. The Curse of Zephyr killed him when he killed the immortal prophet," said Prince Cyrillus.

"No, his brother killed him," said Ramses. Tried to, anyway.

A cramp seized his stomach, wrenching his abdominals. Pain vibrated through his body before settling like a clamp around his heart. Throwing all his strength behind one thrust, Ramses knocked Prince Cyrillus back and the prince kicked over a porcelain vase in his attempt to catch his balance. They both landed on the ground at the same time. Completely out of breath, Ramses doubled over and said, "You win."

"What happened?" asked Prince Cyrillus. Glistening with sweat and similarly out of breath, he walked over and crouched next to Ramses. "I heard that demons need blood. Is he.. not feeding you?"

"Starvation won't kill me," said Ramses.

To which Prince Cyrillus asked, "Is it true that a demon's bite heats a man's blood until lava runs in his veins?"

"Want to try?" asked Ramses. Blood left the same aftertaste as raw eel and feeding on blood was an act reserved for demons far beneath Ramses's class, but Prince Cyrillus looked horrified by the proposal. So Ramses bared his fangs and invited, "By the time you're bitten for the tenth time, it's no stronger than a potent aphrodisiac."

"That's," said Prince Cyrillus. "Potent."

"Again?" asked Ramses, gesturing at the field of vases.

They stopped when two other figures entered the courtyard.

One was Aloysius, who'd kept his plain mask, but embellished himself until he was only a few gems short of appearing bedizen. A silver crescent moon curved around the cup of one ear. Colorful feathers dangling from the silver chains of his other earring brushed against the golden ruffs lining his robes. In addition to his signet ring, each of his fingers sported at least one ring and strings of prismatic gems had been wreathed into his hair.

The man conversing with Aloysius looked so much like Gilbert that the man could only be Gilbert's father, the Archduke Seymour.

Prince Cyrillus jumped off the vases, throwing his sword to one of the servants standing nearby. Except for the one Prince Cyrillus broke, the field remained pristine. Wiping sweat away from his eyes, Ramses handed his sword over to a guard and marveled at how the exercise elevated his mood so much he didn't immediately feel like murdering Aloysius.

Aloysius broke off whatever he was saying to Archduke Seymour and smiled. "Brother!"

"You're up early," said Prince Cyrillus. He leaned down and brushed his lips against his brother's forehead.

"There's a fishing competition near the ocean in an hour. Come with me. I want to see a carp that's," said Aloysius. Several of the gems on his fingers glimmered into a different hue when Aloysius stretched out his hands. "This big."

"Maybe," said Prince Cyrillus, while Archduke Seymour opened and closed his mouth a few times. When Prince Cyrillus pressed his left palm against Aloysius's right and stretched out his arms, his hands came out a full hand longer than Aloysius's. "It might be this big."

Aloysius wrapped his arms around his brother's neck saying, "Lovely. Let's go."

"You have to let me go first," said Prince Cyrillus. But he laughed when Aloysius clung on and returned his embrace. When Prince Cyrillus bent to hook an arm under Aloysius's knees, Aloysius released his brother and settled to walk by himself with a small pout. In response, Prince Cyrillus kept an arm draped around his brother's waist.

"We were discussing how to settle the refugees from the civil wars in the south," said Archduke Seymour. He sounded dazed and he looked twice as dazed as he sounded. His eyes, as green as his son's, were nearly hidden under grooves of wrinkles. "The prince thought we could make them earn their keep by having them help dig riverbanks for areas prone to droughts. Brilliant idea."

"Clearly, the discussion was not as interesting as a carp," said Ramses. Archduke Seymour fixed him with beady stare that reminded Ramses of a hawk. Affably, Ramses stretched out his hands and amended, "It might be this big?"

#

His muscles ached in a beautiful way and Ramses met no resistance when he invited himself into Prince Cyrillus's bathing chambers after a day of testing the weapons in Prince Cyrillus's collection. Faintly, Ramses's sharp ears caught the sound of men whispering in an adjacent chamber, but the whispery voices were washed away by the constant trickling of hot water from the pearl-trimmed oyster shells. The bathing pool, large enough for six men to lay prone on the water's surface, was clearly designed for company.

When company came, Ramses was less than pleased.

Attired in nothing more than a violet silk gown, Aloysius had abandoned his jewelries and twisted his hair into a common Myksosian style favored by women and pleasure slaves. With a tincture of distaste and repulsion, Ramses remembered several of his father's boys -all blond and none who have aged past sixteen summers- offering themselves to him by sliding into his bath. Another piece of the memories that he'd tried to abolish.

Presently, Aloysius blinked once at his presence with a bland, "You're here."

"This is your brother's basin," said Ramses. Defensiveness made him scowl when Aloysius raked his eyes over the black scars that disfigured his body, but other emotions quickly swallowed the shame."Don't you have your own?"

"I'm sleeping here tonight," said Aloysius.

Pale skin was bared before Ramses's eyes as the silk robe fluttered to the ground. Aloysius had a lithe build with clear muscle definition and his shapely sex hung attractively against his thighs. He dipped his toes into the water before sliding in and Ramses reminisced about the Lile crocodile. With only a pair of lazy eyes and a fanged grin visible, the creature had circled him thrice before plunging beneath the surface and tearing away flesh.

Rigidly, Ramses stood up to pull himself out of the hot water.

"Don't you care to hear about the Tell-Tale Glass?" The honey-like voice, intoxicating as aged wine, slithered over his body, hotter than the steaming pool of water he was about to leave. Ramses turned, his answer in his eyes. Pulling a towel over the white skin of his neck, Aloysius said, "You don't."

The Lile's sand had offered resistance when he wrapped an arm around the crocodile's jaw and pressed the dagger-like claws away from his torso. The bottom of the prince's marble pool was smooth. "Don't I?"

"Your ambition of finding the Tell-Tale Glass and restoring Zephyr's soul is just as empty as you are," said Aloysius. Dampened, Aloysius's fine hair was a shade darker than normal. Reaching for soap from one of the canteens, Aloysius added, "Or you would've done it already. Ten years have passed since you were freed from my mother's ice prison."

"Your  _mother's_?" He and his brother had met a sorceress in the Immortal Prophet's palace. A woman with face was so ugly it couldn't have been real, whose magic was able to bring two Original demons down to their knees with one spell. Stinking of childbirth and blood, she'd tried to save the Immortal Prophet, but arrived too late.

"Yes. The ice prison she used to save your life after your brother tried to kill you," said Aloysius.

Aloysius's mother. Emperor Leroy's sister and The Dark Priestess Tiahna. Humans had hailed the once queen-regent of Tyné as the most powerful sorceress since humans learned to command magic. Ramses's memories of the event were blurry and distorted, but he remembered the black-colored magic. Humans always inherited their mother's magic prowess.

"It was no coincidence that you summoned  _me_  ten years ago," said Ramses. His heart raced in his chest. The randomness of which Original demon a summoning portal opened up to could be eliminated if the summoner adjusted their incantation. Eying the amber shard in Aloysius's soul, Ramses said, "Or that you so easily overpower me."

"Nothing in this world is ever a coincidence," said Aloysius. The lotus fragrance permeated the air as Aloysius lathered the soap onto his skin, fueling the avalanche of speculations spiraling in Ramses's mind. A few white bubbles drifted over to Ramses's side of the pool.

"If your magic," the black colored magic that'd overwhelmed Ramses like he was nothing, "is so powerful, why did you beg for and continue to use mine?"

Except for when Aloysius collared him, Ramses had only ever seen him use the purple-colored magic, powers that he bestowed in exchange for the prince's soul. Aloysius said, "The Tell-Tale Glass you pretend to desperately seek is located where my Trials are. You'd need to follow me to the Immortal's Realm."

To Zephyr's grave?

"I asked you a question," said Ramses.

"Doesn't seem like I'd answer," said Aloysius. Leisurely, he massaged the rest of the bubbles away from his body and swam to the edge of the pool. "The stories said that you were able to eclipse the sun when you were on the battlefield. A pity that all my mother managed to preserve is your body."

Ramesses growled and Aloysius said, "Already angry? It's true. I chained you up, dragged you around, humiliated you and forced to kneel on my whim. Your reactions amount to nothing more than immediate anger. No bruised ego. No shame. No sense of  _self_."

After a pause, Aloysius said, "No surprise that you are no closer to restoring Zephyr's soul than you were ten years ago."

_A warrior's knees must never touch the soil._

A cold feeling bled into Ramses's veins, rendering his mind skittish and his face hot. Once Aloysius stepped out of the pool, he summoned a coil of purple energy and a towel slid all over his wet skin. A sin in motion. High and tight, the prince's ass flexed when Aloysius bent over to pick up his robes. Openly staring, Ramses said, "Why do you keep doing this?"

"This?"

"Carve me with words. Force me into situations where I feel enticed yet denied," said Ramses. His brother may have been the one who killed Zephyr, but he was the one the curse would destroy in two years if he failed to restore Zephyr's soul. He  _wanted_ the Tell-Tale Glass, the glass who knew all the answers and Ramses  _knew_ he wanted - "Helpless."

"Is that how you feel?" asked Aloysius. "Helpless?"

Disdain and boredom was ever-present, but Ramses caught an atypical lilt that he honed into like a shark after blood. Rising out of the water and stalking two quick steps over, he gripped Aloysius's chin. Mind reeling from the fact that he'd placed his hands on something he had already deemed impossible to touch, Ramses stared down into a plain of ice and said, "It's revenge."

Impassive and unimpressed, the blue eyes stared back at him.

"What do you want from me?" asked Ramses, watching Aloysius's pulse speed up. From the way Aloysius's eyes demurred and his lips parted, the prince's body language was openly provocative. Water from Ramses's body dripped into the violet silk, bringing out a crimson shade that imitated blood. Aloysius was superficially pretty enough to draw a visceral reaction, he knew that.

 _His Highness usually despises your kind._  Except Aloysius kept seducing him. There was no other way to describe the almost-kiss and what just transpired. Leaning closer, Ramses tilted the prince's head and the faint scar caught the light. Even now, the scar looked like an optical illusion. Aloysius hid his otherwise striking face out of compulsion, not necessity. "What happened to you in Myksos?"

"What makes you think something happened to me in Myksos?"

The response came so sharply that Ramses was speechless. Aloysius lifted a well-manicured hand and turned his palm upwards. A glow of purple hurled Ramses through the air, over the pool, until he slammed against the wall. A fiery pain consumed his right side, bloomed to engulf his body, and Ramses heard his severed right arm hit the ground before he felt or saw it.

"I remembering warning you against touching me," said Aloysius. Sounding as if he'd waited an eternity for the appropriate time to relay the words, Aloysius added, "I hesitated to discipline you in a way that befits your new station. You've repaid my kindness with arrogance and indecorous behavior."

Ramses's teeth pierce through his bottom lips as he bit back the cries of pain and blood gathered at the back of his throat with a sickly taste. As the last folds of the silk robe fell in place against his body, Aloysius said, "My brother leaves for the City of Walls the day after we host a festival for the Myksosian seal-bearers. You and I will greatly enjoy each other's company.  _Pet_."

A door slammed.

Disconnected to the rest of his body and the center of his magic, his arm began to decompose. His energy struggled against the binds, attempting without success to regenerate his arm as blood gushed onto the marble underneath him. The process made him nauseous and Ramses curled into a fetal position on the ground. The whispery voices beyond wall became clearer without the water trickling near his body.

"Twelve assassins," came the wood-on-stone rasp of the cardinal. "He eliminated five of them before they enter Tyné."

"Stop talking about this," said another man. The voice was hoarse and difficult to distinguish. "He saved me from Father's attempt to frame me. I love him."

"Love? There will be no shortage of pretty boys with tight asses," said the cardinal. There was a cacophony that sounded like dozens of metallic objects being shoved to the ground. With only the mildest trace of impatience, the cardinal calmly continued, "Once you are the emperor of Tyné."

Ramses heard the slither of a sword being drawn, but his consciousness ebbed away. More distinctively, Ramses heard Prince Cyrillus's voice, "When I say I love him, I mean that I will protect him at all cost." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to K.R. Morrighan for beta-reading!
> 
> Thanks for reading, leave a word if you'd be so kind!


	5. Chapter 4

The  _Ramses_  that the world hailed as "The Spirit of the Sun" would have escaped or died trying.

Would've taken a dozen arrows in his back as he ravaged a bloody path through Aloysius's soldiers to rip the prince apart with his bare hands. Would've pulled the collar from his neck, even if he needed to tear his neck from his shoulder. Wouldn't have shied from escaping because Prince Cyrillus's quarters teemed with patrolling guards.

Ferocious wind and rain needled into Ramses's skin, clawing into the tight fabrics of his jacket and breeches. The monsoon had begun during the ninth hour Ramses's meditation and Ramses's location at the apex of Prince Cyrillus's Observer's Tower offered him no respite. Watching the flashes of lighting in the funereal nebulas rolling above, Ramses heard Aloysius's mocking voice in the tempest's howl.

_No sense of self._

When his second-in-command pissed his pants seeing the six thousand barbarians, Ramses had growled " _If there's a will, then there's a way_ " before commanding the six hundred trainees into the victory that forged his legacy. Thirteen years frozen in an ice prison and ten years wandering through the human countries had robbed him of the intrepid drive and relentless passion that once made him  _him_.

Ramses peered down. If he leap, he'd land in the Queen's garden, which was half a mile from an exit Ramses could take. Hearing the susurrations of softened leather against stone stairs, Ramses stood from his cross-legged position on the tower's ledge and stepped back to the pavement behind. "You stink."

Now that Prince Cyrillus stood beside him, with a contraption of palm leaves and oiled wood to keep the rain from striking their faces, the lotus fragrance overpowered the natural musk of rain and wet stone. The man had spent time with his brother, closely enough that he, too, smelled like a Myksosian slave. Eyeing Ramses's missing arm, Prince Cyrillus said, "He said you touched him."

"I did," said Ramses. Though Prince Cyrillus's face remained impassive, his fingers curled into a fist and wrinkled the black velvet of his cloak. Ramses reached for Prince Cyrillus's chin. "Like this. Look at me when you talk to me."

Seconds after his fingers connected, Prince Cyrillus pulled out of his grip.

"Your eyes always reflects so much pain that I feel-" said Prince Cyrillus. With noticeable reluctance, Prince Cyrillus met his eyes and said, "I should not interfere with your relationship-"

"We have no relationship," said Ramses. No one would believe the truth given Ramses's current predicament and Prince Cyrillus might distress if he knew his younger brother once stooped to bargain his soul. Ramses continued, "He imprisoned me with a spell and bound me to his commands."

"He hurts you."

"Took an arm," said Ramses, turning his attention back to the sky. The drizzle the monsoon tapered into was now nothing more than damp, shadowy mist. As an Original, his physical form was only a manifestation of his existence and his magic, if he had access to what felt like lead in his veins, could regenerate an arm as easily as it could generate a dozen. "Won't kill me."

"You speak as if you wish something would," said Prince Cyrillus.

"Do I?" asked Ramses. "Perhaps your little brother is right. My existence is empty, just like my ambition."

What he thought he wanted -the Tell-Tale Glass, justice and the truth- was not what he desired with all his heart. To restore Zephyr's soul was high treason to the Pharaoh of Myksos, the woman who schemed to kill the Immortal Prophet so demons and humans could fight once again.. To not restore Zephyr's soul was to invite the world into another millennia of bloody battles.

_If there's no will, then there's no way._

"If you let him burrow under your skin," said Prince Cyrillus. The smile that graced his voice was brief and brimmed with fondness. "He beelines for your heart and you'd never be rid of him."

"Not a problem I foresee in my future."

An icy gust of wind whipped through the air, freezing Ramses's jacket to his skin. Then, warmth enveloped his body and Prince Cyrillus's hands were at his collarbone, tying the cloak together. This close, his own eyes reflected in Prince Cyrillus's eyes; white irises that used to be golden. Looking away, Ramses said, "Memories and emotions come to me like raindrops tossed in the wind. Most of the time, I feel like a spectator in my own life."

"Does it have anything to do with the scars all over your body?" Prince Cyrillus answered the look on Ramses's face, "I saw them when I dressed your wound last night."

So  _that_  was why Ramses smelled like herbs earlier. He bit back a smile. Evidently, Prince Cyrillus was not aware that most wounds would simply rot into a painless, blacken scab until magic refurbished his form. The silence fell into a thick stillness that coiled and thickened around them, a lull that Ramses broke with coerced enthusiasm, "So, how big were the carps?"

"Tiny, as usual." Smoothing his hands over the newly fastened cloak, Prince Cyrillus chided, "We can attend the next fishing competition together, but you must rest up and recover first."

After an incredulous stare, Ramses shook his head. "That works on your brother, doesn't it? Delights him and makes him all smiles."

"I haven't seen him smile since he returned from Myksos five years ago."

"He's always smiling." Ramses scoffed. The shadow of a mocking grin permanently haunted Aloysius's face, curving his lips into a delicate arc that reminded Ramses of a vulture swooping in for a carcass.

"If you ever see it, you'll know what I'm talking about," said Prince Cyrillus. Beneath them, the bell tower rang twice to mark the second hour after noon. "I should help the servants prepare the ballroom for tonight's activities. Stay out of trouble, alright?"

"Maybe," said Ramses, watching another smile flit across Prince Cyrillus's face before he turned away.

The sound of Prince Cyrillus's footfalls faded with Aloysius's scent and Ramses turned back to the open sky. If Ramses had his magic, he could summon his wings. Prince Cyrillus's cloak wrapped around his body as he scaled the ledge and accelerated toward the ground. For a small eternity, wind compressed his skin against his bones and roared in his skull. Ramses landed on his feet and took an experimental step.

There were twenty-four guards in the garden, all startled and reaching for their swords.

Seconds later, Ramses was in another section of the garden, leaving behind a tangle of unconscious bodies, undrawn weapons and armor. A foreign, frenzied feeling sharpened his focus and accelerated his pulse.  _Drive_ : the kind of drive that feels like  _now or never_  instead of the kind of drive that lets you soak in a bathing pool daydreaming about escape.

When Ramses stood in between the last stretch of space between the palace and freedom, shadows detached from the walls and shifted into a humanoid shape. In front of Ramses stood the captive Gilbert had tortured, the man Aloysius supposedly killed for wasting everyone's time. His left cheek, swollen with the Elthemian disease, wobbled as the man took a step closer to Ramses.

The smile on his face was beguiling. "The demon that tempted my prince beyond-"

Ramses's hand on his throat stopped his greeting, but the man slipped out of his grasp and melted into the shadows. A tinkering sound, like wind chimes jingling in a gentle spring day, filled the silence and space. Hundreds of silver chimes, dripping from dozens of tiny, golden braids, tinkled again as Aloysius materialized, saying, "You're here."

Gauging the relaxed, calm posture of the prince, Ramses waved at the empty space in front of him. "Didn't you kill him?"

"He died from his disease two weeks ago," asked Aloysius, dismissively. The Elthemian man reappeared and his form reconstructed into the startlingly handsome man in the whorechamber. The one who gave Aloysius twelve names and received the order to eliminate five of them. "Ramses, meet Nyx. The King of Shadows and the master of a thousand faces."

Right before a flattered smile fully formed on the Abyssal Shifter's face, Aloysius added, "He's Lyron's pet."

With an exaggerated frown, Nyx said, "My prince is so  _mean_."

Ramses glanced around. Infested with eight-eyed rats, two-headed cockroaches and flying spiders, the slimy underpass for transferring rotten food and human waste was rarely visited by any sane individual who wasn't the lowliest of servants. "How did you know I would be here, at this time?"

The question was a distraction. Ramses dashed toward Aloysius, boots slogging through the wet slop of pungent detritus. Halfway in his maneuver, one of Ramses's knees gave out. He would've felt impressed by Aloysius's speed and physical prowess, had he not looked to see what Aloysius used to sever a tendon behind his knee.

A hairpin with sprinkles of amethysts, shaped into a cluster of delphiniums.

"You used magic," Ramses spat.

"A warrior waits for a better opportunity when his enemy is too strong," said Aloysius. Ramses's mind continued the recitation of the academy's ninth commandment:  _Temporary abeyance is not defeat_. Righting himself from his combat stance, Aloysius twisted the hairpin back into the snakes' lair of golden braids and silver chimes. "Come. Let's ready you for a party."

#

Walking down the opulent halls of the palace once again, Ramses assessed each detail with new, calculating eyes. An effective strategy would have been to take Prince Cyrillus hostage, but Prince Cyrillus had saved him from the labyrinth's rats and gave him his cloak. At one point, Ramses considered pushing Aloysius into the poisonous monster gems, but Aloysius casually drifted beyond his reach.

Compared to Prince Cyrillus's chambers, Aloysius's rooms were bigger and inconsistent in design. The prince's excessively embellished presence chamber rivaled his father's throne room, but his bed-chamber was austere. Chaste. Ramses allowed himself a bath in the diamond-crusted pool, but the "good behavior" desiccated when a servant came forth with his attire for the night.

"You're not rubbing that crap on my body," said Ramses, pushing the servant toward a cabinet where he knocked over a collection of glimmering ornaments. The pock-faced servant boy who wanted to rub a pineapple-scented oil onto his body scurried backwards, toward the archway where he bumped into-

"Your Highness," said the servant.

Aloysius was half-dressed, in robes that flowed like water down his body and revealed skin as he walked. After pursing his lips at the mess, Aloysius began to pull the rings from his fingers. One of the rings, gorgeous and oversized, had a basilisk's eye as the centerpiece. Taking the crock of oil from the pock-faced boy, Aloysius said, "Leave."

Out of something unidentifiable that wasn't fear, Ramses stepped back, until his back found the wall and his hand clutched the corner of the cabinet he'd previously knocked the boy into. Once Ramses could move no more, Aloysius crouched in front of him, dipped his fingers into the oil and glanced up through lowered lashes.

Back in Myksos, the slaves did that for their masters - oiling, massaging and dressing. Aloysius's touches scorched like fire but his presence and motions felt like gently falling snow. There was quality in the movements that invited Ramses to nurture and cherish instead of destroy. A knot coagulated at the back of Ramses's throat and he hoarsely asked, "What are you thinking?"

"Your instincts are so naturally dominant and predispose to violence," said Aloysius. One of his hands rested on the blackened wound he inflicted earlier while he reached for more oil. "If I extort what I want from you through force, I'll create unnecessary headaches for myself and waste time."

Opening and closing his mouth a few times like a fish out of water, Ramses felt exactly like one too. His heart pounded with more than adrenaline and blood rushed away from his head, rendering him lightheaded and dizzy. Keenly, his missing arm reminded him of its absence and Ramses gritted out, "What happened to 'no touching'?"

The way Aloysius's bottom lip jutted out looked more like a pout than a frown. "If you had asked again, I would have told you what I want from you."

"What do you want from me?"

"Too late."

"You have no idea," said Ramses. Whenever Aloysius moved his body, even if just to reach for the crock again, the position sang with allure. Hissing when Aloysius's hand slid between his legs, knuckles gently brushing against his balls to reach for the crevice between his thigh and ass, Ramses said, "Your behaviors and requests are indecipherable and paradoxical because you lack an intrinsic libido for ownership."

"You're not thinking with the right head right now, are you?"

"Do you realize that you always deflect truths you don't want to acknowledge with a startling question?"

He remembered the way Aloysius unfolded under Nyx and the wide-eyed, red-faced shame until his brother forgave him. The sexual energy Aloysius exuded ranked of the yield-to-touch, flushed-to-please  _natural virtues_  that the slave trainers in Myksos idealized but Aloysius himself was a kaleidoscope with a mind that operated like a torture device.

"This collar belongs around your neck more than mine," said Ramses. A memory forced a way through, consolidating into a girlish face with kohl-traced eyes. He had owned a slave before, when he was a teenager, and he'd carved the lily into the gold slave cuff himself. "I've seen your behavior before. My father-"

_No._

"Stop turning away from your past," said Aloysius, an urgency in his tone cutting through the headache that thundered in Ramses's mind. The hands moved from his hips to his chest, rough touches that matched the demanding voice. "You need to figure out exactly what you want and pursue with merciless certainty. You're running out of time, Ramses."

More softly, as Aloysius dipped to retrieve the clothes, "I know your father. I stayed with him for three years while I visited Myksos."

A thought that vaguely felt like coalescing insight blinked away when Ramses looked down. A mistake. His vantage point gave the illusion that Aloysius was on his knees. The silvery robe would cascade to the ground if Ramses yanked the tie and the dozens of braids  _begged_  for forceful fingers to dishevel them.

Ramses rested the back of his head against the wall. "When you took my arm, you were angry because your body defers to my touch. Not because I touched you."

The instinctive demurred gaze and parted lips. Though bewildered, Ramses gave into the pleasure of revisiting the exhibit in the whorechamber. If Prince Cyrillus had pressed the soiled white confection to his brother's lips, Aloysius would've took the fingers into his mouth as well, licking and teasing until he was forgiven. A euphoric heat, initially consolidated in his loins, fluttered to prickle the back of Ramses's neck.

"I should put you in a cock-ring and plug a tail into your ass," said Aloysius. "Like the pets the mages keep for pleasure."

"But that'd bring you no pleasure," said Ramses. Without touching Aloysius, he mimed tracing a hand up Aloysius's cheek and his hand accidentally knocked against the cluster of delphiniums. Mockingly, "Not when  _your_  instincts are so naturally submissive and predisposed to manipulations."

There was no surprise when metal clamped around his manhood.

#

Pleasure slaves were status symbols in Myksos.

Twenty-three years ago, Ramses could have owned half a dozen, while seal-bearers would only be allowed one. In the country of demons, owners liked to compare their slaves and the slave with a more beautiful face, lither body and longer hair brought their master honor. Presently, at the entrance of Tyné's ballroom, the seal-bearer was too busy staring -first at Aloysius, now at Ramses- to show off the boy kneeling behind him.

"Khasek, I trust that you enjoyed hunting with my brother," said Aloysius. Yanking Ramses forward, Aloysius said, "I named my Ramses after the Spirit of the Sun."

Aloysius nodded at the performance on the stage. In the middle of the ballroom, in a blend of Myksos's bold, colorful simplicity and Tyné's serpentine displays of wealth, a Myksosian dancer representing Ramses brandished his sword as he leaped, twisted and danced on the shields and weapons of the other dancers.

"An Original," said Khasek. His laugh was rich with restrained astonishment. "There were so many slanders that Your Highness bartered your soul for magic, but then you went and collared  _this_."

"I couldn't think of a better way to seal those mouths. Would you like to pet him?" asked Aloysius. The violent thoughts forming in Ramses's mind dissipated when the appendage around his cock  _buzzed_. His insides melted into liquid heat and Ramses forced himself to instead think about the spindly legs of the insects he saw earlier. Khasek reached out, but didn't dare to touch. "He's a good boy. I promise."

"Magnificent," breathed Khasek. There was a quick tap of fingers against Ramses's cheek. "Your companion is magnificent."

"Pet," said Aloysius. When Khasek delivered a questioning look at Ramses, who stood a full head taller than Aloysius and at least twice as broad, Aloysius added, "He's just a combat familiar. Nothing lovely and exquisite like your Orchid."

Staring at Aloysius again, Khasek said, "Yes. Lovely and exquisite. Do you like him, Your Highness? Go ahead and introduce yourself, love."

Crawling to the spot Khasek pointed at, the slave with an orchid on his gold slave cuff briefly rested his forehead to the ground and, after Aloysius held out his hand, Orchid lifted his head to kiss the prince's knuckles, one by one. As Aloysius leaned to stroke the slave's hair, the pin with the clusters of delphiniums fell to the ground next to Khasek's feet.

They both reached; Aloysius grabbed his pin and Khasek's fingers closed over Aloysius's wrist.

The shift in Aloysius's body language, from ordinary to complaisant, was instinctive and obvious. When Khasek reached for Aloysius's chin, a muscle jumped in Ramses's neck and his shoulders tensed up. Khasek, with a hungry gaze that felt like a violation, appraised the sight before him and said, huskily, "I heard that you are the most beautiful man in the four kingdoms."

Aloysius surrendered his hairpin when Khasek's fingers danced on his palm, saying, "In our tongue, beautiful and poisonous share the same pronunciation."

The exchange ended with a coy smile from Aloysius.

Inside the ballroom, Myksosian pleasure slaves, defined by the gold cuff on their left wrist, crawled behind their owners while Tyné's costumes were a bizarre mix of class and sleaze. Jewels nestled in layers of velvet and ruffs decked the nobles while the pets who weren't combat familiars were naked and garnished with tails plugged into their ass, nipple clamps and mouth gags.

Prince Cyrillus rose to greet his brother, but his mother's hand on his shoulder stopped him. Though her scalp sported metal inserts, her eyes had been dyed yellow and her face was inked with purple scales, Queen Araminta held her head high and her back straight. Ramses looked away. Nyx, with what Ramses presumed to be his real face, stood behind Lyron with a collar around his neck and smirked when Ramses caught his eyes.

After examining the whole room at his leisure, Ramses turned back Aloysius. "You're unnaturally somber for someone who already seduced-"

"You think I was seducing him? I  _hate_  when your kind looks at me like that," said Aloysius. An unnatural weight broke his airy inflection and a faint scent of fresh blood drifted from where his nails gouged bloody crescents into his palm. Then, the wicked smile reappeared. Aloysius, very sweetly, said, "You said I was predisposed to manipulations. You think I can convince him to rape you?"

The music changed, from drums and gongs to the strings and woodwind of Tyné's instruments. Ramses said, "You think that scares me?"

"Of course not.  _Scared_  is when he's splitting you apart and you wonder when the hands will go away," said Aloysius. He smiled with easy alacrity and the chandelier of gems in his earring twinkled merrily. Extending a hand with freshly mended skin, Aloysius said, " _Horror_  is what you'll feel when you realize you'll be reliving every thrust for the rest of your life. I like this music. Shall we dance?"

With that metal ring around his cock and a missing arm? Unlike Myksos's dances, Tyné's dances involved a partner, complicated feet movements and intimate body alignments. "You want to gyrate against my body while I'm hard and trapped in your little configuration? I, too, will be looking at you like I want to bend, spread and fuck you, little prince."

When the ring tightened and buzzed again, the images of insect legs crawling on rotting sewage wasn't enough to keep his body from boiling.

This time, completely from rage.

"If I were you, I'd instead look for ways to make the situation easier for myself. Not harder," hissed Aloysius. He fitted perfectly in the crook of Ramses's elbow and wrapped his arms around Ramses's neck. He pulled a leg forward and pushed Ramses's leg back to begin a simple sequence. "Do you like the toy?"

"Why would I-?"

Easing his body into the motions of the dance Aloysius began, Ramses continued, "What  _I'd_  like is to pleasure and defile you. I'd like to deny you relief until I force every scream, plea and cry from your pretty little lips. I'd like to gag and choke you until tears fall and you forget how to close your jaw."

With mock tenderness, "Would  _you_  like  _that_?"

A lesser man would've been petrified by the look in Aloysius's eyes. Every muscle underneath the silvery robe steeled with anger. Then, Aloysius's mind won control. With explicit disinterest, Aloysius pulled their bodies flush. His breath caressed Ramses's ear when he moaned,  _"Yes, Master."_

In the next eight moves, Ramses tripped five times. It wasn't until he glimpsed the victorious smirk on Aloysius's face that Ramses gritted his teeth and seized control of their dance. Aloysius yielded easily, but he moved the way he commanded men to kill - economically and without passion.

No matter how quickly Ramses demanded a sequence or guided the body in his arm, Aloysius executed the contours and weaved in his own embellishments - caresses, pivots and thrusts. The music didn't stop when Emperor Leroy, with the cardinal, appeared on one of the balconies that rose above the ballroom. Emperor Leroy lifted his hands, as if to applaud.

Steel-clad imperial guards spilled into the room, weaving between the dancing couples to the six Myksosian seal-bearers and their personal retinues. Golden hieroglyphs begun swirling on the walls with a low hum. Startled yells rose from the seal-bearers, but nobody else paid the soldiers any mind as the Emperor finished casting his spell and Ramses recognized the magic-limiting seals.

_Magic-limiting seals._

In a comparison of raw strength, Aloysius was to Ramses a reed of grass under a large boulder

The prince's soldiers also entered and circumscribed their area as Aloysius wrapped a leg around one of his and they spun in the climaxing music. Mid-twirl, Aloysius gestured for Desmond to lead a group and surround Prince Cyrillus's table. Before Aloysius's attention returned, Ramses snapped one of Aloysius's wrists and pinned the supple body against his own.

Against the clamor of swords being drawn, Ramses said, "Keep dancing, love. But we need a sincere heart-to-heart."

 


	6. Chapter 5

A sword cleaved a nearby body in half.

"Ouch,"said Aloysius.

There was a sharp inhale when Ramses snapped his wrist, but his blue eyes were clear and _amused_. As the reek of spilled blood and gaping entrails stung Ramses's nostrils, Aloysius wrapped a leg around one of his and they spun to the climaxing music. Only instincts prevented Ramses from kicking one of the detached heads or tripping over one of the sprawling limbs.

"We need to properly discuss that soul you owe me, your mother, the Immortal Prophet and Telltale Glass," said Ramses. Their dance ended in an embrace that placed Ramses's hand at the back of Aloysius's neck. Squeezing until the bones popped, Ramses hissed, "We should do so while you're on your knees sucking me off."

"Alright," said Aloysius. Following the cessation of the instruments, the soldiers severed the last head from the visiting seal-bearers and Emperor Leroy's laughter echoed in the ballroom.Sounding sweet and vulnerable, Aloysius whispered in the Myksosian tongue, "Later, Master?"

Ramses's grip loosened a fraction. "What?"

"We shall reminisce about the past while I fellate you," said Aloysius. His gaze swiveled from the balcony, where Emperor Leroy clutched at his heart and toppled into the arms of The Cardinal, to where Cyrillus stood with an arm around his mother. Cool knuckles lovingly grazed Ramses's jaw and travelled down the side of his neck."Your eyes momentarily changed from the color of ice to the color of the sun."

"…What?"

"I was talking about your eyes. They're occasionally beautiful," said Aloysius. Then he gestured as if he was swatting an insect away and something extremely sharp gauged a stinging incision next to Ramses's jugular vein. "But only occasionally."

Apparently, there was an obsidian blade hidden under the oversized basilisk's eye ring Ramses admired earlier. In a competition of pure speed, Ramses could not break Aloysius's neck before Aloysius slit his throat. As the skin around the wound began to hiss and evaporate, Aloysius said, "Let go, love."

After kicking a head out of his way, Aloysius walked over to Khasek's corpse. The seal-bearer and slave perished with their arms around each other. Aloysius beckoned to one of the captains of the imperial guards. "Send the heads back to Myksos. Burn the bodies."

Whilst soldiers and servants hurried to obey, Aloysius yanked his hairpin out of the dead demon's hand. The collection of delphinium shimmered into a shatter of prismatic reflections under the magic torches as Aloysius slid the pin into his hair. The snowy ermine trim of his gossamer cloak swayed an impossible breadth away from the streams of blood, remaining chaste as Aloysius walked out of the room.

 _Jingling_ the whole way.

#

The sun was still beneath the horizon and the precipitation in the air amplified the frigidness of the night. After almost half an hour of silence, Lyron said, "The rumors that the cursed prince was tempted beyond sense when he saw you were clearly rumors."

"Listening to the gossips of idle minds will dull your own," said Ramses. Opening his eyes, Ramses invited himself out of his meditation and refocused his attention to his location at the ledge of Prince Cyrillus's Observer's Tower. "You said that yourself."

"Why did he collar you?" asked Lyron. Smoke curled from the spell he'd cast to warm himself, framing his long, serious face. The precision of Lyron's magic reflected a complete mastery of the blue energies in the boy's body. A child prodigy? "He despises your kind."

Recalling Khasek's words, Ramses said, "Weren't there slanders that our little prince sold his soul for magic? No demon can grant humans magic powerful enough to collar an Original, so he clearly did not."

Turning back to the peaking rays of the sun, Ramses added, "Run along, child."

"I'm not a child." Though his eyes reflected depth and maturity, Lyron still had the high, nasal voice of a boy and he couldn't be any older than eleven. Despite his spell, his little button of a nose was red. "I'm your age."

Ramses chuckled. "I am-"

"Forty-three," said Lyron. His green eyes narrowed and, Ramses knew why Desmond instinctively reached for his sword when Lyron stepped out of the shadows that day."Though you only existed and aged for thirty of those years."

"Probe my mind again," said Ramses. A scowl replaced his chuckle. "I'll tear you apart."

Before their conversation escalated, Prince Cyrillus's voice interrupted, "Whenever my men tell me you're nowhere to be found, you're up here."

As if he'd never been there, Lyron dissolved into the shadows.

There was a spare cloak in the crook of Prince Cyrillus's elbow and a steaming cup in his hand.With an indulgent smile, Prince Cyrillus walked up to Ramses and held out the cup, "Here. Even if you don't like tea, you can hold the cup to warm yourself."

Once the cup was in Ramses's hand, Prince Cyrillus shook out the spare cloak. The warm weight of fur and cloth fell around his shoulder. As Prince Cyrillus fastened the cloak, his attention dipped lower and Ramses could not stop him from pulling out the crocodile fang from beneath his jacket. Prince Cyrillus said, "I saw this before."

"This extraneous trinket?"

"Only five demons ever killed a Lile Crocodile," said Prince Cyrillus. His eyes glittered with excitement and wonder, briefly rendering him a decade younger. "Three are historical figures."

Calmly, Ramses asked, "What are you trying to say?"

Unlike Aloysius, Prince Cyrillus could not,did not, hide any of his emotions. Ramses identified stubbornness, a desire to argue further, disappointment, sullenness, and finally, reluctant acceptance. Temporary abeyance, which did not mean defeat.

Prince Cyrillus released the fang and Ramses swept his trophy beneath his clothes.

"You ever feel that everything that happens is justa dream? Nothing you do matters," said Ramses. Though the cold was not uncomfortable for Ramses, the warmth from the cup was pleasant. "Last night, I witnessed the brutal slaughter of a ballroom full of my people. I felt nothing."

"It’s not nothing," said Prince Cyrillus. "You just don't know what you're feeling yet."

There was something in his tone that turned Ramses’s head. Prince Cyrillus was not strikingly attractive the way Aloysius was, but the more you looked at him, the more you liked how he appeared. The first time Ramses met Prince Cyrillus, the little boy had stared at him with determined, doe-like eyes and declared, "Are you truly Ramses? I like youand I will be like you one day."

 _How that boy had grown_. Stifling a budding smile, Ramses only shook his head.

"I used to define myself by my accomplishments and I lived to win another battle, but the world seems to have stopped giving me any opportunities," said Ramses. When he was younger, he'd always wanted more time to revel in each victory and prepare for the next, but now, he had no meaningful way to spend all the time on his hand. "I no longer matter to this world, or to anyone."

"You can't control what opportunities the world will give you," said Prince Cyrillus. "Live to fight another round with me. Live to free yourself from my brother. Live to behold this view. Just remember to bring a cloak next time."

Was a man thirteen years his junior teaching him how to live life? A retort formed, but died on the back of Ramses’s tongue. He hadn't aged when he was trapped in the ice prison, so Prince Cyrillus was arguable the same age as him. After quieting a low chuckle, Ramses asked, "How is Emperor Leroy?"

"Father collapsed from over-stimulation," said Prince Cyrillus. He had a habit of chewing on his lips when he was nervous. "The ballroom massacre was too exciting for his heart."

Prince Cyrillus said something else, but the sound of the cup shattering drowned his words.

Ramses’s stomach and heart had begun to throb and writhe in the cage of his ribs. An unearthly pain ripped through every nerve ending, forcing him to double over. Ramses's body, already weakened from the denied soul and severed arm, screamed for sustenance. Prince Cyrillus reached toward him, "You can bite me, if you need blood."

"You know what my bite will do to you, right?"

"Yes. I do not want to-" Prince Cyrillus brandished a hand, as if he wanted to brush away that part of the conversation, and shifted from one foot to the other. "But you can bite me."

"You won't be able to stop yourself from-" With deliberate seriousness, Ramses mirrored the brushing gesture. "Especially when I'm going to be your first."

"Oh," said Prince Cyrillus. He gnawed his lips and his eyes darted from side to side. "Well, -"

The flustered, scrunched-up expression on his face turned into confusion and, finally, chagrined astonishment when Ramses began to laugh. The hunger pangs gave way to a different kind of ache along the side of his abdominals and Ramses pressed the back of his hand to his lips in an attempt to quell his mirth.

The laughter bubbled to a stop when Prince Cyrillus punched his shoulders and glared at him. Sobering up, Ramses grinned and said, "Thanks, but your blood won't help me."

"Could've said so sooner," said Prince Cyrillus. The determined expression, burnished with obstinacy, was back. "When you laugh, you remind -"

"Ramses is dead."

"What if he isn’t?"

Prince Cyrillus’s knuckles were white around the dagger at his waist and his eyes demanded answers. Ramses replied, "What if humans never came into existence? What if Tyné never conquered Elthem? What if Ramses never killed the Immortal Prophet?"

"If he is isn't, then he should know that there are still people who believe in him," Prince Cyrillus answered his own question. "To me, he was, is, and always will be my hero."

"Why do you, in particular, matter?"  

The question was cruel, but so were the emotions that Prince Cyrillus’s words brought forth. To his credit, Prince Cyrillus did not look away and his hazel eyes, uncompromising and demanding, drilled into Ramses’s. Feigning disinterest, Ramses sighed and delivered a one-shouldered shrug.

Turning away, Prince Cyrillus asked,"Want to spar? I leave for the City of Walls in three hours."

Taking a last glance at the sun, which was now fully above the horizon, Ramses drew the cloak closer to his body and said, "What I enjoy more than the view, is the fact that you always come looking for me."

#

After opening the door and inviting himself into Aloysius's bed-chamber, Ramses knocked twice and announced, "Am I interrupting?"

The room was dim. Only a slant of sunlight shone through the curtained windows, enough to see that there were two figures, entwined, on one of the chaises. Aloysius's head was on Gilbert's lap, eating the pomegranate seeds that Gilbert fed him. The prince was bare from waist up and the diaphanous material covering his legs hardly counted as clothes, but Gilbert was fully clothed. 

Ramses snorted.This explained the shadow on Gilbert's face when the young mage made the offhanded speculations about Aloysius's fetishes.

"Gil," said Aloysius. "Leave."

"Your High-"

His protest was cut off when Aloysius bent up, cupped his cheek and pressed their foreheads together. "One last thing."

When Gilbert moved in for a kiss, Aloysius asked, "May I borrow your knife?"

As the blue-pearled knife switched hands, Aloysius wrapped his now-healed wrist around Gilbert's neck and pulled him closer. Through lowered lashes, Aloysius's eyes drifted over to Ramses and _beckoned_. For a heartbeat, Ramses felt the he and Aloysius were the only ones in the room and there was no space left between them.

From a perch at the corner of the room, a phoenix hatchling flapped its wings and squawked, "Gil, leave."

After the sound of Gilbert's footstep faded, Ramses picked up an apple from a crystal bowl and strolled over the phoenix. The bird hadn't been there the last time Ramses was in Aloysius's bed-chamber, but the little chick had grown to the size of Ramses's forearm. "You always kick your bedmates out like that?"

"Why not?"

"Ever spent a night with someone who cares about you and wake up in their arms?" asked Ramses. With a smirk, he added, "Hard-pressed to find that person, though."

Right as Ramses took his first bite, the phoenix hatchling flapped down in a flurry of red and gold and sank its beak into the fruit. With his teeth still in the fruit, Ramses only managed a muffled, undignified grunt before he surrendered his apple to the outstretched claws.

Aloysius said, "Even Cyri thinks that you're an idiot."

"You're an idiot," the phoenix hatchling squawked in affirmation.

When Ramses took a menacing step toward the bird, a burst of sparks exploded in his face and forced him back. There was a flutter of genuine merriment in Aloysius's eyes, but, he shuttered away the expression, laid a hand on the spot Gilbert previously occupied said, "I remember my promise, love. Come here. Sit down."

"Fuck off," said Ramses. "That soul you owe me. Your mother. The Immortal Prophet and Telltale Glass. Just talk."

"Or else?"

But he was the one who offered. Aloysius's oscillating attitudes wormed under Ramses's skin like a disease, infecting every filament of his being with a burst of frustration and anger. Rounding on Aloysius, Ramses said, "Do you think your brother can survive a fall from the top of the Observer's Tower? What if my hand slips while we spar?"

In the following moment of silence, Aloysius began trying to balance the knife, vertically by its tip, on a finger. "You will not hurt the man you're falling in love with."

"What are you talking about?" Ramses curved his lips upward into something that wasn't a smile and took a step toward the chaise. When Aloysius opened his mouth to speak again, eyes gleaming with malicious intentions, Ramses said, “Shut up.”

"Or else?" The knife was perfectly balanced now, erected between where Aloysius lounged on the chaise and Ramses, who towered over his seated figure. Aloysius continued, "Did I prick a nerve? Not my fault you're always giving yourself away. You've fallen so far. Swooning into the arms of-"

Enough was _enough_.

Closing the distance between them, Ramses said, "That _one of my kind_ we previously spoke of is the grand vizier of Myksos."

The white mask was smooth under Ramses's hand and unhooked easily enough. Gripping Aloysius's chin, Ramses tilted Aloysius's face until the thin scar was visible under the magic torches. "My father has specific perversions, which explains why you've been _trained_."

The mask silently drifted to the ground with a flick of Ramses's finger.

"Your eyes tell me that any attention you receive from other men simultaneously degrades and fulfills you." Trailing his gaze from Aloysius's narrowed eyes to where his left bare wrist rested against his thigh, Ramses said,"You fidget with your left sleeve cuff when you're nervous. Your breathing slows down when you're angry. You toy with things in your hand when you need to calm yourself and you scrutinize your nails when you're thinking."

Aloysius had removed the silver chimes from his hair, but the elaborate braids were still there. Except for the pin with delphinium flowers and the ring with the hidden obsidian blade, his body was bare of any other accessories.

"Despite your preference for simple, practical clothes, you bedaub yourself in these elaborate, foppish costumes to piss off your father," said Ramses.There was an enunciated disparity between what Aloysius wore in Ainsworth and what he wore now. "You procrastinate your Trials because you're afraid that your father will kill your brother once you can be crowned."

Meeting Aloysius's eyes again, Ramses moved his hand to cup Aloysius's jaw and said, "Right now, you're comforting yourself with the fact that you can rip me into shreds if you wanted to. You're fighting a natural compulsion to flush and nuzzle into my hand. You want to hurt me, but you know that giving into your anger again will cost you more than a victory in the long run. Your right hand just inched toward your left wrist. Your pulse just sped up. You're not blinking."

"Did I prick a nerve?" asked Ramses. Mockingly, he leaned into Aloysius. The gesture of kissing a slave or child's forehead was one of affection and forgiveness in Myksos, but there was nothing like that when Ramses pressed his lips to Aloysius's forehead and inhaled the sweet, lotus fragrance."Not my fault you're always giving yourself away. I've been dealing with two-faced, scheming bastards since before you were born."

One last thing. "Your bids for my attention are neither fun nor funny, so stop fucking with me."

The seductions. The uncertainty. The cryptic bursts of anger. Ramses would've recognized the signs earlier, had he been willing to remember. The initial burst of anger had transformed into a sizzling, feverish elation of victory. He couldn't remove the collar from his neck and he couldn't escape the Palace of Mazes but he could play Aloysius's games until the prince wished he never did something as stupid as _collar an Original_.  

With his pale lips curled into a mellow smile, Aloysius leaned away, rested his head against the back of his hand. His posture displayed _untouchable_ and _unbothered_ , but his elbow dug into the padding on the arm of the chaise. Slowly, intentionally, Aloysius slid the tip of tongue over his lips. "But you like it."

A leash manifested and Ramses bucked onto the ground before Ramses's ears caught on to the murmured "Heel." The ground split when Ramses's knees crashed into it and Ramses gritted his teeth.  _A warrior's knees must never touch the soil._ As soon as that thought finished, other memories poured to the forefront of his mind.

Grinning with the dagger caught between his teeth, _"And that, little brother, is how you take down a fool."_

Screaming and straining as his father whipped away his fears and childishness.

The waterfall of long, blond hair as the young slave curled up on his lap, _"Master, I love you."_

And her. Her. _Her._

_"Ramses, my beloved sun, you may rest now. The night is here and the night is ours."_

_No._

"Stop turning away from your past."

Everything was blurry, but Aloysius's voice was clear. Like a wash of cold honeyed wine after a long fight under the hot Myksosian sun, the soft, pleasant caress of Aloysius's voice slithered in and coalesced with the turmoil contorting Ramses's chest. "Fight me, Ramses.”

The leash shattered.  As dredges of black magic dripped to the ground, Aloysius turned his palm upwards.A newly formed black leash cleaved through the space between them and met Ramses's purple magic in an explosion that hurled Ramses backwards, into a sharp corner of a cabinet.

Debris of the shattered timber and magic residue settled as Ramses forced himself upright.

His magic was once again inaccessible and unresponsive in his veins. The collar clamped like a vice around his neck, heating until the skin around the metal bubbled and burst. Everything in the room, except for Aloysius's chaise, had sustained damage.

Like a Lile crocodile breaking the surface of water, Aloysius slowly lifted his head.

Black blood trickled down his ashen cheeks as Aloysius surveyed his bed-chamber. There was a flare of purple magic and the black blood evaporated. With a contemplative frown, Aloysius stole more magic from Ramses and restored his room to its previous condition.

"Your own magic," the black colored magic, "poisons your blood and damages your body when you use it."

That must've been why Aloysius stayed at Ainsworth for a week after their battle on the field of delphiniums. How much damage did Aloysius do to himself when he wove a binding spell on an Original? Wouldn't Aloysius have expended less energy if he'd simply killed Ramses?

Nonchalantly, Aloysius said, "Won't kill me."

"Now that we reminded you who's in charge," said Aloysius. There was no time to retort before Aloysius smiled with childlike alacrity and continued, "Twelve assassins. Nyx killed five of them. I want the other seven dead by midnight."

There was a certain pleasure in throwing Aloysius's words back at him, "Or else?"

Swiftly, Aloysius drew the blade of Gil's knife down his palm. Only a dribble of red blood spilled, but Ramses launched himself forward with teeth and fangs bared. His forward momentum came to a halt when Aloysius pointed Gil's knife right between his eyes.

"If I can get you the seven kills by midnight," said Ramses. "I'm going to bite you until you scream."

"One last thing," said Aloysius. "Use Gil's knife."

Ramses slanted an annoyed look at the tiny, decorated knife flying toward his face.

_Whatever._

His eyes widened as soon as he caught the thrown knife. The blue pearls on the knife's handle were as cold as the ice in the ice prison Ramses had been trapped in, but warmed to his touch. Echoing a movement from the deepest abyss of his memories, Ramses brandished the knife and the blade transformed.

Ramses gasped.

"Yes, that's Solarmorse," said Aloysius. The prince glanced down at his nails, but didn't pretend to be engrossed by the ovals. "My mother took that from your body twenty-three years ago. Can you imagine my shock when you never recognized your sword?"

 _A warrior must never abandon his sword._ The fact that magic gave his sword another form was not an excuse. Thousands of thoughts tumbled in Ramses's mind as he lifted the large, heavy weapon. "I don't enjoy taking lives," he'd told his trials master when he knelt and became the master of the most powerful sword in Myksos. The slant of sunlight bounced off the golden blade in brilliant, white rays that illuminated the previously saturnine room. 

It took Ramses almost a full minute to realize that the incessant _thuds_ were not his own heartbeat, but were footsteps from the hallway outside.

"Let me in!" Rard's voice.

Solarmorse reverted to the form of a small knife with blue-pearled handle and moments later, Rard barged in. Upon seeing the seated figure, Rard kicked one foot into the other and tripped to the ground once again. Sounding dazed, he sat on the floor with his hands behind him, stared, and said, "You literally are the most beautiful man in the four kingdoms."

"Irrelevant," said Aloysius. "What happened?"

"Prince Cyrillus," said Rard. The boy was out of breath, but panic added an edge of sharpness to his words. He scrambled to kneel and spoke, "Queen Araminta announced that Emperor Leroy has fallen into a deep sleep and seized control of the council. Since Your Highness has never completed your Trials, the Queen and Prince Cyrillus shall reign as dual regents of Tyné."

"My brother's uncle?"

"The Cardinal hasn't left the Emperor's side," said Rard.

"Star-crossed lovers to the end," said Aloysius. To Ramses, who'd taken a step forward, "This is none of your business. If you can't present the seven heads by midnight, then present your own."

"Prince Cyrillus won't-" said Ramses.

"Don't forget to return Gil's knife to him when you're done."

The look in Aloysius's eyes was chillier than the blue-pearled handle of the knife in Ramses's hand. Aloysius extended a hand and the doors of his wardrobe opened to spit out a velvet robe trimmed with white ermine. Simple, but impressively tailored. Nothing like the chimes, gossamer, feathers and jewels Aloysius wore in the last few days.

"Tell that bitch to wait for me in the throne room."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, folks... Team Cyrillus or Team Aloysius?


End file.
